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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Building A Strong Local Church, Part 1 | Edwin Anderson | Holy Ghost Meetings 2021 | World Harvest Church | Murrieta, CA
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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message.
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Welcome to Holy Ghost 2021, Friday, Saturday. Can that man teach or what? I started listening when I got back into fellowship with the Lord in 1970, late fall of 72, 72 and over into 73. I started going to church in I think early 73, and somebody put a Kenneth Hagin book in my hand and changed my life. And so in 73, 74, 75, 76, all during the 70s, I was reading everything I could get my hands on by Kenneth Hagin. But I was listening to Brother Copeland's tapes. I would carry them. I went overseas working for the company I was working for. I carried a suitcase full of Kenneth Copeland tapes with me so I'd have something to listen to. That month I was over there and he always kept me spellbound. And he still, boy, he still got it. He has still got it. I was so blessed. Praise the Lord. I thank God for Brother Copeland. Amen. Hallelujah. I thank the Lord for this church. I thank the Lord for the gracious invitation to come and share with you. Praise the Lord. What an awesome looking crowd. Glory to God. See, we're still have rows closed. Every other row closed at our church. And it makes everything look so spread. I like to see people together. This is looking nice. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you today for your goodness and blessing upon our lives. We thank you, Father, for the call that each one of us have received to be a part of the local church. I thank you for that, Father. I thank you, Lord, for revelation, for understanding of the age that we live in the church age. I thank you, Father, for helping us today to see things that we've not seen before, to understand things that we've understood, but understand them a little clearer and a little better. I thank you, Father, for utterance today to help me say what needs to be said and for all of us to have the ability to hear what the Spirit is saying to us in our heart. And we give you the glory and honor for it. In Jesus name, Amen. Hallelujah. The Lord dealt with me several years ago about writing this book. And so I started writing it. And I knew in publishing this book that I would have a lot of pastors reading my book that would say, pastor, I'm in agreement with you. I know all of this and I know that there are a lot of pastors sitting here in front of me today that no doubt know more than I do about the local church. And God's given you tremendous revelation and I, and I'm aware of that. So I come to you today in humility. But you know, I've learned some things and you learn. We learn things different ways we learn things sometimes because we're stubborn, hard headed, but thank God we still make it and we still learn. And so I've learned things about pastoring and all the different ways you can learn them. And I have found this, that now I'm going to be talking a lot to pastors, but I'll be also talking about the local church. And so my word to pastors is that let me say this too. I didn't write my book just for our camp because our camp has tremendous revelation of the local church. But outside our camp is not a lot of revelation on the local church. Not too many people really understand the local church, the place it has in God's economy and the believer's role in the local church. Most people in the body of Christ Church people, spirit filled people, Pentecostal people, don't know it. So I would like for you to agree with me that I can get this book beyond our camp, into the places I need to get it so that we as a body can share some of these things outside of our camp. Amen. So would you believe with me for that? Amen. I have discovered that successful pastoring is mostly the result of being led by the inward witness in line with the word of God. I cannot overestimate that. Now, like I said, I've learned a lot of things by experience and experience can be a great teacher. I've seen that certain challenges come to a church over and over again over years. The same sorts of challenges and problems arise. And that's how I learned how to deal with some of these things. Because you know, after a few times just, you know, bumping your head against the wall, you back off and say, well, let me examine how I'm responding to this. And so I have had time to prove the things out that I've put in my book. Now you have to weigh everything I've said and I've written by the inward witness because every situation that you will deal with in a local church has its own unique components. And you have to understand that some of the things I dealt with early on as a pastor, being led by the, by the inward witness turned out good for me. But today, if I faced some of those same situations, I might not handle them today. The way I handled them then I'm thinking about a situation that arose in my church when I was. I'd been pastoring three years, and those. The first six years that I was pastoring, well, maybe not six, but four or five years, I didn't want to be a pastor, and I wasn't happy pastoring. I was sure that God was going to deliver me from this. From this certain death that had been imposed upon me. And we had a situation when we were just three years old as a church. We had an insurrection in our church. We had a man and his wife who had been our youth leader. And I'd put them in without praying about it, and it was a big mistake. And so they were doing some things they shouldn't be doing. And so I just stopped the youth ministry. I just canceled. I said, we're not having a youth ministry until I get a handle on this and get these things straightened. Well, you can predict, you know, this man, his wife got very offended over that. So it wasn't very long before I found out that they were leading. They were going around to other couples in the church, inviting people over, because people came to me and said, I feel so dirty. I feel so ashamed. Pastor I went to this, you know, so. And so invited me to this house for dinner. We were just having a nice dinner. And after dinner, the conversation went sort of like this. Well, you know, we love Pastor Anderson, but. And so what they were trying to do was they were trying to get a group of people to agree to get rid of me. And I had to come down real, real heavy against that. I mean, I had to just. I put the hammer down. I went to that couple's church. I mean, that couple's house, and I read them the riot act just in their home. I said, let me tell you something. You either repent or don't you come back to church. And I said this, and I said it entirely by faith. I said, I can tell you this. If you come back through the door of my church and you haven't repented, I will know it by the Holy Ghost. That was pure faith. I said, I will know it by the Holy Ghost the minute you walk in the door. And. And I don't care if we're singing, if we're praying over the offering, or if I'm in the middle of prophesying, I will stop it and I will call you down to the front and I will expose all that you've been doing to the entire church. Now, that was a strong reaction after all of these years, I'm still convinced I did the right thing, because if I hadn't stopped what they were working on, we wouldn't have had a church. They would have destroyed church. But, you know, now after pastoring 40, well, almost 41 years, I'm in my 41st year. I've got a lot more credibility with people. You know, when you first start pastoring, you don't have credibility. That's right.
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That's exactly right.
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Except you've got credibility loaned to you because people want to believe in their pastor. They do. They want you to succeed and they want to believe in you. But, you know, the old expression, the benefit of the doubt, There is doubt. And so they want to believe in you, but you have to be very careful about how you do things. And now that I have more credibility, I'm not sure I would have handled that situation if it arose today the same way I handled it then. Because I have a broader credibility in my congregation, I could afford to maybe be a little more diplomatic. I don't know, maybe the Lord would lead me to do the same thing. What I'm saying is God will lead you according to your maturity and your spirituality and your experience in ministry. And so you can't always take what someone else did and, and apply it in your situation. You have to be led by the Spirit. I made this statement in the. In my book that when challenges arose and things tried to come against my church, you know, to. To seemingly destroy my church, all I. All I knew to do was to pray and follow the inward witness. In the early days when I started my church, there weren't a lot of word of faith churches. I started my church in 1980, and there were a handful. You could go to a big city and you might find one or two really, you know, genuinely word of faith churches that really preached the word of faith and the move of the Holy Spirit. And so I didn't have a lot of examples to follow. And so I just. I had to follow the inward witness. And I can testify by doing that all of these are not. Now, I'm not saying I never made a mistake, because sometimes I haven't always been led by the Spirit. But in the times when the devil tried to bring big discord in my church, I followed the inward witness. And 100 out of 100 times, I haven't been 100 times. But all the times, the inward witness has proven to be the right thing. And that brings great confidence because there is the greater one in us. Oh, thank God. Hallelujah the storms of church life come to every church. The storms of life come to every person. Well, the storms of church life come to every church. And you have to be prepared for that because it makes. When the storms of church life come, it can cause the people in the church to grow very nervous and very, very jittery and sometimes want to, want to jump ship. And so you have to, you have to know that the spirit of God is leading you. A number of years ago, my wife and I, this was back probably in the late 1980s, early 90s, we had that conference where we stayed with the Tiptons were with us. We were in an RMAI regional retreat and Brother Tipton, brother and Sister Tipton, who was Lynette Hagin's father in law and father, father and mother, they were. Were you in that meeting in. Where was that at? It's over on the coast. Yeah, it was in Hilton Head, wasn't it? Yeah, Hilton head. Anyway, S.C. we, the Tiptons were there and they were, they were the, the feature speaker. Well, we had, we had the opportunity to share a condo with them. So was dad and Mom, Tipton, Angela and me, and a couple other pastors, a four bedroom condo. So we had the opportunity, you know, to spend some time with, with Brother Tipton. And we just, you know, we, we gleaned on him and he got all of this wisdom. Let me tell you a funny story. I may never get through with this. He gave me a copy of some sermon notes and he. I'm a teacher. I don't do jazzy sermons where you have, you know, all these catchy things. You know, he had, he had several pages of these real brief outlines of these sermons, and he gave them all to us. So one Saturday night, I was struggling. You pastors don't look at me like that. You know what I'm talking about. I was struggling one Saturday night, what am I going to minister? What am I going to minister? You know, And I decided to pull out one of Brother Tipton. It was a colossal disaster. Do you remember the bird sermon? Brother Tipton had this message about all these different kinds of birds and how they applied to church members. And I don't remember. There were the, there was buzzards, there were the church members that just always hang around looking for something to die that they can pick on. You know, he had all these birds. And so I, I got that message and I memorized and I got up home. My congregation looked at me like, who is in the pulpit this morning? What are you Even talking about it was a disaster. The old timers, I know your parents remember that. But Brother Tipton made a very important comment to me that has stuck with me. He said, most problems in your church that today might seem to be a great threat to your church will not turn out to be all that big a deal. He said they won't be. He said it seems like, he said, I've seen things that just like it was going to destroy my church. He said, well, was all over. It really wasn't that big a deal. He said, pastor, stay calm and just keep trusting the Holy Ghost. Well, praise the Lord. That's, that's done me very well over the years. Turn with me, if you would, to Matthew 16 and let's look at what Jesus said about the local church. Hallelujah. Jesus said in verse number 17, Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church. I will build my church. Pastor Nancy has mentioned that Brother Copeland said that next year is the year of the local church because the Holy Spirit will emphasize certain things to draw us to important truths. And that's why he does it. But, and I remember dad HAGIN Back in 1998, I was at Winter Bible seminar and Brother Hagin said that. And it was in January. And he said it's January, February, February. He said, a lot of ministers ask me from time to time, Brother Hagin, what is God doing? What is he saying today? And Brother Hagin said today Jesus is building strong local churches that know how to flow with the Holy Spirit. Well, that's what he's always been doing. Notice. Have you ever thought about this? This is the church age. We all know that's all Christians know this is the church age. But it doesn't. They don't let that settle in. It's not the apostles age. Come on now, come on, come on. Not the teacher's age. This is the church age. We're living in the age of the church. And I'm going to show you from the scripture that this is primarily talking about the local church. We're living in the church age. God sends revivals through the church, but the revival should never really be our ultimate emphasis. We need to understand that these revivals and these movements come to strengthen and help the church. He doesn't send revivals through any other organization, any other group, any other kind of people. He doesn't send revival through, you know, some of the clubs. I can't think of any of them. You know, Rotary Club. He doesn't send revival through the Rotary Club. He doesn't send revival through the NCAA athletics. That's not where he sends revivals. He sends revivals through the church, into the church to keep the church and centered on the things that he wants us to be centered on because we're living in the church age. Amen. Jesus said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Jesus is building his church. If you really want to be Christ, like, if you really want to be like Jesus, get involved. Helping Jesus build his church. That's what he's doing. And if you're not helping Jesus build the church, then you're not helping Jesus do what he needs done, because this is what he's about. He's about building his church. Amen. Hallelujah. So told Pastor Nancy, I've got to be careful to pace myself and know what to skip over and what to keep. So pray for me. Jesus made the statement, I will build my church. Most people use this and interpret this to be a reference to the universal church, the overall body of Christ. I don't believe that at all. And I'll tell you why. When I'll go into more detail in a few minutes. But I read something years ago. I read a wonderful book by a good pastor, a great minister, and I believed this for a long time. He said that when Jesus said, I will build my church, he said, jesus introduced a new word to the disciples because he. Excuse me, he pointed out that this is the first place in the New Testament where the word church is used. And so this, this pastor and teacher, he said, Jesus introduced a new word. He said the disciples probably looked at each other and said, a church. I will build my church. What's a church like? They had never heard of that word. That's not true at all. When Jesus used this word church, they were very familiar with this. In the Greek, it's the word ekklesia. A lot of people pronounce that. Ecclesia. It's actually pronounced ekklesia. And when they heard that word, that word had two fundamental meanings in. In the days in which Jesus introduced it. And then the apostles talked about it. The first of all, it had a Jewish meaning. The word ecclesia had a Jewish meaning. The. The disciples were familiar with the word church. They didn't understand anything about what we know as the church, the body of Christ. They didn't know that, but the, but the word church, you know, there's a translation of the Old Testament. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and there was a translation of the Old Testament into the Greek 200 years before Christ. It's called the Septuagint. And this word ekklesia is prominent in the Old Testament. That the Septuagint, the translation of the Old Scripture, Old Testament and it translates another word which means to assemble or to summon people together. So that's the Jewish and it's used of the congregation of Israel. So when Jesus used that word church or ecclesia to them, they understood that he was talking about a physical. Every time that word was used in the Old Testament it referred to the actual assembling of Israel. They were called together, they had holy convocations, holy assemblies where they were assembled together. It was always a physical, literal meeting. So, so to think that they thought of a universal church. Now there is a universal church. And, and that's a wonderful revelation, but that's not the primary use of the word. And to Jews it referred to an assembly of the, of Israel. To Greek speaking people, the Gentiles, it was a word that also meant an assembly. And it, and it applied to a civic assembly where people were called together to do civic business. In both instances it was a, it was an, a literal physical assembly of people. So when Jesus said, I'm going, I will build my church, I'm sure they wondered what he meant. I will build my assembly. Because they understood the word assembly to apply to Israel. I will build my assembly. This, this understanding of the local church came to me a little gradually and I'm going to take a little bit more time this morning maybe than I, and I'll speed up when I get a little further down. But I want you to understand how I came to my understanding of the importance of the local church. When I got back into Feld, I had been raised in a Christian home, Pentecostal Church. Parents and grandparents were very involved. Our family was very involved. But I backslid as a teenager, got away from God and when I was 20 years old I got back into fellowship with the Lord and Jesus just so changed my life. I was so grateful to be back in the safe place in the family of God again. I mean just to have that, that, that assurance of salvation again. And so I started attending church and I was involved. I got involved in the local church, you know, pretty quickly because I had been raised to believe you should be involved in the local church. So I got involved in local church And I've mentioned this before. Brother Copeland, the other night, yesterday morning or last night, he talked about the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship back in the day. He said, well, if you missed that, you really missed something. Well, that was pretty part of the charismatic renewal. The Full Gospel Businessman was. Was one of the organizations that was prominent in the overall charismatic renewal. So I went to some of those meetings. I was, you know, as a. As a young man, this. This charismatic revival was going on. And growing up in a Pentecostal church as a child, we were ostracized. It's hard to believe now, but back in the 1940s, 30s, 40s and 50s, 60s, and up until the mid-60s, you know, there are certain organizations, church organizations like the National Council of Churches or, you know, I don't know what it's called, but there are organizations like that. They would not allow Pentecostal denominations to join. They didn't consider us part of the church. We were. Pentecostal churches were so prejudiced. There was so much prejudice, and we were. We were blackballed. Growing up, the last thing I wanted anybody to know was that I went to a Pentecostal church. I was ashamed of it. And when I got back into fellowship with the Lord and started serving God again, I was working for the telephone company at the time. And I became real good friends with a man that I met, and he was a wonderful Baptist brother. And the charismatic renewal was going, and I would witness to him, and he was saved. But I would share with him about the move of the Spirit and all that God was doing. And he wanted to believe. I mean, he wanted to. To, you know, to taste of the. Of the move of the spirit. But I could never get him away from his. From his background. And he finally told me one day, he said, edwin, you don't understand how hard this is for me. He said, there is so much that I've been told about speaking with other. That was the big issue, speaking with other tongues. He said, I have been told so much about. He said, it's hard to overcome. He said when he was a little boy, and I'm sure this didn't happen every time they drove by church, but he said he remembers going by a Pentecostal church. And his mother said, now, son, you see that church over there? You need to stay away from those people. She told him, and he's just a little kid. He said, now, I know it couldn't be true. But his mother told him that you have to stay away from those people, because here's what they do on Sundays, they get together and they run around and yell and roll around in the floor until they just work themselves up into a lather. And about 3:00 in the afternoon, the fire department comes in and hoses them all down. And they do that the next week. He said, now, I know that's what ridiculous, he said, but as a little kid, that marks you stay away from those people. Well, I grew up with that, with that sense of ostracism. Well, when the charismatic renewal came, people were being baptized in the Holy Ghost from Baptist churches and Methodist churches and Lutheran churches and Presbyterians and Episcopals. And it was wonderful. And so you would meet all of these charismatic Christians when you'd go to meetings around town or in a bookstore or something. It was so liberating to know that there were other people besides our little corny group, you know, because we had, we didn't look very nice. Well, the men looked nice, the women looked terrible. They weren't allowed to wear any makeup, no jewelry. I mean, it was a sad, sad looking deal. But all the men came, came dressed in ice suits, you know, and oh my goodness. And. But now, you know, the pretty people were getting filled with the Holy Ghost. Instead of just country people and backward people, you know, to doctors and attorneys and, you know, important people, nice people were being filled with the Holy Ghost. And I had heard the message or the truth at some point as a child or maybe after I got back into fellowship with the Lord. But I'd heard this concept of the universal fellowship of all believers. The charismatic renewal made me so aware of the universal body of Christ. Because you could go into a store and you'd hear people praising God and you go to a bookstore, you go to a meeting, a charismatic meeting outside of our church. And so I was just so aware of the sort of the grandeur, you know, the enormous presence of the universal church. And I was a part of something big, not just my corny little backward church now. And I had grown in my appreciation of the church, but, you know, from my background. And so that was kind of the reason I had such a. An understanding of the importance of the universal church. I thought the universal church was paramount over everything, that God was really focused on the big picture of what he was doing outside. Local churches could participate in it if they were open or maybe not. But what God was doing was in the universal church. Now I started pastoring, you know, I stayed there in that church, you know, for seven or eight years. Went off to nine years, went off to Bible school and graduated and started pastoring. And I still didn't realize that I didn't have a proper understanding. I'm a pastor, but I didn't have an understanding of the local church. To me, because there's so many natural things involved in the local church. I had been raised in a church. My family, now my wife's family, her parents were pastors. My parents were not pastors, but they were involved in the church. So there's a lot of stuff that goes on in local churches that people ought not know about, should be kept in the pastor's office. But when you're in a denominational church, everybody knows about it. So when I started pastoring, I endeavored not to have that kind of stuff. But it happened anyway to me. And I didn't understand that I thought this way necessarily. But to me, I saw God interested in people. I was. I. My dad had been killed when I was 11 years old in an accident. So I grew up without a father. And when I got. When somebody handed me Brother Hagin's books and Brother Copeland's books and tapes and things, and it was so real to me that God is my very own father. I needed a father so bad that was so real to me. He's my very father, and I'm his very own child. And Jesus is my savior and he's my elder brother, and I have the Holy Ghost in me. It's all about me. And I. That was where I felt like God's focus was. And it is. He is focused on us. He loves us. So the love of God and his care for me was so, so big in my life. But then when you came to church, there was a lot of natural things that are involved in having a local church, and it'll always be that way. But I saw the local church mostly like God saves people, brings them into his family, and then encourage them to get together in groups and have church. That was kind of my. Even as a pastor, I kind of, you know, believers assemble together and you're supposed to. So that you. So that you won't get squirrely, you know, and you can do group together, come together corporately to do some things for God. I thought the local church was sort of like that. It never. I never perceived the local church to be, particularly my church, to be a notable or distinct body in God's eyes. I knew he knew who we were and what we were doing, but I didn't see my church, if you can understand what I'm saying, as a body or a congregation that he was particularly aware of with our own identity, if you can understand that, turn with me over to Romans, the 16th chapter of Romans. The first glimmer of light came from the 16th chapter of Romans, which is not a chapter you often get a lot out of. So I was reading, you know, the 16th chapter of Romans, and he's greeting, you know, the different people. And the first verse says, I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea. And you read on down there, you know, verse four, talk about Priscilla and Aquila, who risk their own necks for my life, to whom not only I give thank, but also the churches of the Gentiles, plural. So those. Those are. That's not the universal church, that's. Local churches likewise greet the church that is in their house. And there's some other verses in here. But it suddenly occurred to me for the first time that God, because you know, the Holy Spirit was in. Was inspiring Paul. So when Paul made notice, took notice of individual congregations because God. And I know this is elementary now, but it wasn't elementary to me at the time that God actually saw and recognized local churches and he knew one church from another. Each church had had its own identity. That so excited me. I mean, now it seems so elementary, but it was really a big deal to me. And then I turned over to Book of Revelation. I saw that. That there were seven individual churches that. That he called by name. That was really exciting for a little while. Then I realized that he wasn't happy with all of those churches. And so I went from being glad that he knew about my church to being worried. Don't spit me out of your mouth. I mean, you know, so there was this understanding that really helped me. Now, a few years later, I don't remember how long this was. I had the ministry team Shekinah Glory come to my church. And Reverend Lois Toucher was teaching. And she said one of the most startling things I'd ever heard before. She said the emphasis in the New Testament is not on the universal church, it's on the. I'd seen that. I just saw that God was. He knew my church. She said the emphasis on the in the New Testament is not on the universal church, it's on the local church. And she said there are 110 references now. There are 115 uses of the word of Ecclesia. Now, because I believe Matthew 16, most people think that's the universal church. I believe it's local church. But anyway, she Said that of the, of the 110, so I have 109 uses of the local church. She said 90 of the 110 of the 110 examples, 90 of those references are to the local church and only or to the universal church and only 20 to the local church. Well, I was startled. I thought this can't be true. But it excited me. So I went out and studied up, looked at all my references, ecclesia and depending on you have to look at each verse and then ask who was talking, what were they talking about, what was the background, what was the setting. You'll find out that There's a, by a 4 to 1 ratio. God has a whole lot more to say about the, about the New Testament local church than he does the universal church by a long shot. That was, that was a huge emphasis to me and an important thing to me. Not understanding this and not understanding the meaning. This was another thing that really helped me me the meaning of, of an ecclesia from the Jewish meaning and the, and the secular Greek speaking meaning. It means a literal physical body. But not only that, it's a, it's a body of people that have been called together by God. The congregation of Israel, when Israel had these assemblies, when they had, when they, when they met, God called them together. They were called together by God. They didn't just decide to meet, they didn't just meet on their own. Now the word congregation can be a little misleading today because a congregation and that's, and it was translated that way sometimes. But today a congregation can mean just a group of people who have assembled. You can, you can congregate at a bus stop. You know, that's a congregation. But in the New Testament, in the Old Testament, in Israel, in the New Testament, the church is God's people that he has called together. Every time we come to the local church, every time we meet, we're not meeting on our own. Now, it might seem like it because there are a lot of natural things that go into, to attending a local church and being involved in the local church. I mean, just getting to church is a natural thing. You know, you got to get dressed and you got to cram those babies feet in that little shoe that doesn't fit. You have all these things that you have to gas up your car and when you get here, you've got to pick up trash and you know, do all these things that you do to make church work. And so we can unfortunately fall into the trap of thinking about the church, the local church. On a natural level, it is not a natural thing that we're doing. We are called together every time. Now the interesting thing is, nowhere in the New Testament are we told how often to meet. Never told how often to meet what day of the week. Now, history tells us that the early church met on Sunday in, in, in honor of the, of the Resurrection. But we're not, we're not told we have to meet on Sundays. It just became a tradition. We're not told how often we have to meet. We can meet on Sundays or Tuesdays or whatever. God, God allows us to work together with him in our assembling. It's not, and it's not that he tells us when to meet. There is a standing invitation all the time to meet together in his presence. It's there all the time. And so because we, because we know as living in a natural world, it's probably not going to last for a long time to meet every day. We have learned that we can have church and do something for God and meet together so many times a week. But every time we meet, we, we meet because God is calling us here. Now you've probably heard people try to explain why they go to church to unbelievers. Unbelievers will say, why in the world do you go to church all the time? I mean, you go two or three times a week. Why do you go to church all the time? And I've heard some of the, some of the funniest explanations I've heard people in my church, I know this one lady, she said, she said, I tell people because it's, because it's fun. Now when you tell a sinner that it's fun to go to church, they cannot relate to that. They just look at you like, what are you talking about? Or we'll tell unbelievers sometimes. Well, I go to church because it's uplifting. And they're thinking if they've ever been to church, it wasn't uplifting. At best it was boring and at worst it was terrifying. What do you mean it's up that all of our explanations just fall on dead ears. They can't get it. That's not why we meet. That's not why we come to church two or three times a week. The reason we come to church two or three times a week is because God tugs on our heart and it's a spirit standing invitation. But when the day that we have selected in our schedules that we're going to meet, when that day starts getting close, you can feel it, if you, if you stay full of the Holy Ghost, I mean, you'll start, you know, you'll start getting excited. Just the anti. Oh, I'll get to go to church night. Church night, church night, church night. I get to go to church. There's an anticipation, an excitement and a draw. That's the ecclesia. That's what that is. That's the calling of God to assemble together. That it's a spiritual thing. And oh, glory to God. God put a desire in us to meet in his presence because every time we meet he has something to say, something he wants to do, something he wants to impart, something he wants to develop or help. Oh, glory to God. And yes, we go away and we are edified and we are built up and it is fun, but all of those things are natural responses in a sense. The real, the real thing is we are called and it just does something on the inside of us when we assemble together. Oh, glory to God. Thank God for the local church. This natural thinking though, that people have when they don't see this, most Christians still have that natural thinking about local church that I used to have that. Yeah, I know the Bible says, you know, we're supposed to not neglect assembling ourselves together so it's the right thing to do. But then understand well that natural thinking results in a lot of, of of lot of problems because that's why people neglect the assembling of themselves together because they see it as, as a more natural thing. So it's easy for them to experience, excuse themselves and missing. I, I'll see somebody that's been out of church for a while and I'll say, you know, where have you been? You know, my in laws came in to town or this happened or that happened. And really what it amounts to is they didn't, they don't see that supernatural thing that call is there, but they don't understand, they don't, they don't recognize it. You and I are excited when the, when the time is go to church. But a lot of people, because they're not very spiritual and they live in the natural realm, they don't sense that it's easy for them to miss. I came across another definition of this word that's translated neglect. Do not neglect the assembling of yourselves together. And this Greek scholar said that this word was used outside of the Bible, this Greek word and it, and it carried the idea of abandonment. And he said when, when Paul said in Romans, do not neglect the assembling of yourselves again he said, don't, don't abandon the assembling. The idea in this abandoning is, you know, everything will go on fine without me. You don't need me. You can make it on your own. That's, that's what you do when you abandon somebody. You lead them to make it on their own. Well, when people stay out of church, they're really abandoning the local church. They don't realize that their participation in church is so important in the life of that church. We all bring a supply, we all have something to bring to our local church. And it's not right. You not only rob yourself when you stay home, you rob your brother and sister when you stay home. Because we are. Have a critical contribution to make to the local church. And again, it's natural thinking. Natural thinking will rob us. Amen. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Now, let me close with this. Today, our assemblies are sacred. Yes. They're not only supernatural, it's not only that. God calls us together, and he does, but our assembling is sacred. If you go back and run references in the Old Testament, particularly in the law, it talks about sacred assemblies. It talks about holy convocations where they were called. And every time the people were called together, they were instructed to set aside that day and do no natural things, only do holy things on that day. Don't work, don't get involved in natural things. Because the assembling in God's presence, God was who he was, a fearful God. You met in God's presence, you better be right. And it was a sacred holy thing. So they had these different feasts, different times in the years that were, that were these. And Sabbaths were weekly. And so it applies there too. But these, these holy convocations, these feasts, they foreshadowed Christ in one measure or another. Well, today we don't. We don't observe feasts because we don't need to observe the shadow. We have Christ. We don't need to be recognizing his shadow. He meet Christ is with us. The Lord Jesus Christ is with us right now. He's here. That's a holy thing. That's a holy thing. God has called us together. So when pastors don't train their congregation to see that the church is a sacred assembly, then you begin to fall into the ideas. Well, you can just come any way you want to, just come as you are. And so many churches are preaching. Just come in here. Just come as you are. It's no different than going to the movies or going shopping. Just no, preparation is needed. Yes, preparation is needed. Yes, preparation is needed to come to church. We're meeting in God's presence. He is here. The Lord Jesus is here. The Holy Spirit not only lives in me as an individual, he lives in you as an individual, but he also lives in all of us corporately, as a body, he inhabits this. This church, this local church is a temple of God. Now, my body's a temple of God. Your body's a temple of God. We need to learn that and, you know, do right. But our local church is indwelt by the Spirit collectively. That's a big deal. So pastors that have. Have left the impression that, you know, you just come as you are. That's the. What leads to so much worldliness in the church. In 1987, I guess it was when dad produced the book Plans, Purposes and Pursuits. Dad Hagin, he talked about the worldliness that had crept into the church, the worldly worship, the clapping, the worldly dancing and all that, and corrected that since the. What we've seen in the last number of years with this. With this de emphasizing everything holy. Just come as you are. Do what you want to do. No preparation. Just come in your shorts, your flip flops, your tank tops. You can't. You can't have that lax, disrespectful attitude. And it not result in sin. It always will. It always will. And people have the idea today that no matter what they do in church, that God will accept their. Their new worship forms as long as their heart's right. And they mean it, right? By who? And Nadab Nabihu wouldn't agree with that. They offered up heartfelt fire and it cost them their lives because it wasn't what God wanted. And so people have all kinds of. There's all these. It seems like every few years somebody comes up with a new way to worship God, you know, some new come on, come on. And there's so little reverence in it. You cannot bring the fleshly demonstrations of applause and just silliness. You can't bring that in to the worship of a holy God. He doesn't receive it. He doesn't receive it. I was reading in one of Rick Renner's books or his book on sparkling gems, and he talked about the fact that one of the words for preach in the New Testament, it's not one of the most common words, but one of the words that's used for preach is the word caruso. And it's a verb, means to preach in a few places. It's used, but that the noun that goes along with that. The Karux. The Karux. What the Karux did is he preached the Caruso. And the Carex was the representative of the king. He was a commoner. He wasn't part of the royal family. He was a common man that was selected by the king to represent him to the common people. So he was a herald in a sense of the king. He went before the common people to, to bring the message and the image of the king and to represent the king to the people. Well, for him to do that, first of all, to be selected as the Carex was a huge honor. You didn't approach that job with a lackadaisical, casual kind of atmosphere. And to go before the people dressed like an idiot, dressed like they dressed, would have been an insult to the image of the king. Now, I'm not saying that we have to go over the top, I'm not saying that. But there needs to be some honor and respect in how we present ourselves. And it's mostly come into focus in the last few years because of this hyper casualness. Now I remember when Angela and I got back into February, fellowship with the Lord, started going back to church. You know, I'd come out of a hippie lifestyle and, and you know, when I first started going to church, pastor looked at me like, oh boy. Okay. Over a period of time and just a few, just months, really, a couple years, my hair started getting, I was down on my shoulders, it started getting shorter. I started wearing instead of, instead of tie dyed blue jeans and you know, tie dyed T shirts and a headband, which I started wearing when I first came to church. Sandals, we call them Galilean gliders. You know, my hair started getting shorter. I started buying out the clothes back then, the double knit polyester, polyester. I was still smoking a little, little bit at the time. You know, had to be real careful to be real careful not drop any ashes on that. You lose your whole pants, you know, they just melt on you. You know, I started wearing, I started wearing, you know, the polyester, double knit polyester slacks, you know, nice dress shirts, a necktie about that wide, you know. But the idea, idea was I started dressing nice. Nobody told me to, nobody insisted on, I do it, it just number one. I really, I really wasn't all that interested in dressing this way, to be honest with you. I still kind of thought it was square. But my idea was if I'm going to be a blessing in the church, the only way I can Be a blessing in the church is take on me more responsibility. And they're not going to give me responsibility if I look like I came off an Indian reservation. So the hair started getting shorter, the nicer clothes. But you know what? We weren't crazy about it. It wasn't like it wasn't something that was imposed. You know, it wasn't uncommon on a Wednesday night to not wear a coat and tie just now. The staff did, the pastors did, but most people in the congregation did. So. So it wasn't like it was just an over the top. You got. You got to dress, you know, to the nines every time you go to church. That's not it. There is a respect, though. That's the important. There's a respect in how we dress. And you cannot respect God coming in looking like you just left a casino or something. Amen. Or just left the car wash. Well, amen. Praise God. Hallelujah. Well, let's close for now. Praise God. And we'll come back here tomorrow. You know, we have a whole week. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Well, let's stand up. Glory to God. Thank you, Father, for your blessing, your goodness in our lives. Glory to Jesus. You're so good to us. Thank you, Father, that you called us together today. We're just not here because we decided to come. And we've been looking forward to this week, Lord, for months. But there's more going on here than just us having a reunion. He called us together in this place, at this local church to meet together in this local church to hear from you this week, to experience your presence. Glory to God. Oh, Father. Oh, I love you, Lord. I love you. I'm so grateful. Grateful. So grateful you saved me. So grateful you filled me with the Holy Spirit. So grateful for the call of God on my life. Every one of us have a call. Every one of us. God has called you. Glory to God. He has put abilities. He's putting supply in you. Every one of you has been called to come and bring what you have. You might say, well, no one ever hears from me. I just sit in the back and, you know, maybe teach a little class or work in the nursery. Listen, your presence, there's a spiritual presence. When we come together, we all bring a supply. We're members. The Bible says we're members of one another. We've been. We've been baptized into a. Not just into Christ, but into a local body. God intends for us to. To. To understand that we are as important to one another as our eyes and our ears and our feet and our hands are to our body. We can, we can't get along without you, so. Well, I don't do anything. Well, you can fix that. But, but we can't be without your supply. Every, Every time you come to church, you either raise or lower the spiritual temperature. Every time you come together, when you come to church and you've just kind of snarky and just feel like, well, I just, I'm in a bad mood and I'm just going to leave me alone. Jesus, I did you a favor by showing up today. You just hindered the Spirit to a small degree. Just a small degree. You hindered the Spirit, but if you get enough people like that, it's a big hindrance to the Spirit. Amen. We all have a contribution. We all bring our supply and we all help or hinder the Holy Spirit. Glory to God. Let's all promise one another to help, not hinder when we come together. And I've almost, but it just slipped out then. I've almost got myself, I've almost broken myself from saying, when we come together, when God calls us together. I'm trying to break that habit because when we come together is not, Is not the full picture of it. When, when we've been called together. It's not the next time we come together, the next time God calls us together. And we need that understanding. It needs to, that revelation needs to sink in. Because when you begin to. When you begin to see and understand that God has called us, it'll. It'll produce seriousness. I don't mean an uncomfortableness or, you know, anything like that, but it'll. It'll produce a respect and a certain soberness and awe that God would call us together to fill us. Fill us. Fill us. Fill us. Fill us. Fill us with His Spirit. Fill us with His Spirit. Oh, glory to God. Hallelujah. Some people think a Spirit filled church is a church that believes in being filled with the Spirit. That's not a Spirit filled church. A Spirit filled church is a church that is filled with the Spirit. That we allow the Holy Ghost to manifest himself. And we don't just sit back as spectators, but we invite his presence. We yield to his presence. From the front row to the back row, we yield to the Spirit of God. That's a Spirit filled church. Amen.
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