Genuine ministry

A recovering of the Testimony, a revival, includes several vital components. We need to remind of a couple of them in relation to the modern concept of ministry.The full and total mastery of the Holy Spirit. Our modern view holds that man is able to direct the activity and workings of a spiritual flow, an anointing.The all encompassing purpose of God is to allow Jesus Christ to become the measure to which any and every experience and operation, spiritual as well as moral, must be aligned.Do our spirituality, character and emotional outbursts resemble the spirituality which He himself lived in and conveyed to the disciples as Life unto God. What did Jesus do among men and how did they react? What does the life which comes from and represents Heaven look like?Do our modern efforts in the realm of and direction towards a revival miss the mark regarding vital steps on the way to regeneration and restoration such as conviction and repentance? Does God renew unconditionally by simple touch and command?

The material creation in Genesis began with “light”, and so also does the spiritual creation. God ‘shines into our hearts’ by the work of the Holy Spirit and then spiritual life begins; 2 Cor. 4:6. Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the dangerous nature of his soul’s disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies. I believe that one of the chief wants of the church in this century has been, and is fuller teaching about sin.J. C. RyleHoliness

The Word of God defines man’s experiences. Man’s experiences cannot allow for re-interpretations of the Scriptures.Anything spiritual is not holy.Anything miraculous is not of Heaven.Anything mysterious is not God’s ways.Two gifts are needed more than anything in this late hour – Discernment and Wisdom.Holiness is not harsh.Truth may hurt, may even break, but brings eternal strength.L. W.

The formula of Revival is:Preachers need to hit the altars and weep because they have no tears.Groan because there is no moving of the Spirit of God. Apologize to God that we’ve kind of manipulated the supernatural. Now, I am not just thinking of miracles of twisted limbs and other things. I think the greatest miracle that God can do is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world, and make that unholy man holy and put him back in an unholy world and keep him holy. But we are more afraid of holiness today in the church than we are of sinfulness. If an unclean man with an unclean spirit does unclean things, if a man that’s vile does vile things because he has a vile spirit, surely the man who has the Holy Spirit in him will live a holy life.From:Weeping between the porch and the altarLeonard Ravenhill

We are trying to marry Christianityto prosperity, and popularity, and personalities. And it isn’t working. Oh, you can preach the prosperity doctrine because that feeds our carnality. Look, why don’t those men that preach that go to the third world to preach it where they need it? I know wealthy people, many of them are lovely people and I believe God lets them have a ministry in supplying needs. But when the church of Jesus Christ is prosperous, she never has revival. It’s when she’s poor. Prayer is the language of the poor. “Bow down Thine ear and hear me, for I am poor and needy.” The self-satisfied don’t need to pray. The self-sufficient don’t want to pray. The self-righteous cannot pray.From:Weeping between the porch and the altarLeonard Ravenhill

The old shaman of the fertility cult and the modern vanity prophet of the Church urges your to pay, and then he will issue a creative word amidst a marvellous, a spectacular show to get you what you want.A prophet, a true minister of the Word, brings forth what you need. You cannot pay him to refrain from telling you the truth. And when you try flatter him, you have told him that he was perfectly right in his assessment.L. W.

The common offer of evangelists these days is this ”You need power; come to the altar and get it.” This has no more moral appeal than taking a car for gas and saying to the attendant, “Fill her up.” This shibboleth brings no moral change or spiritual enduement that would make a sin-sick world and a flabby faltering Church know that the Almighty has visited His people. Obviously He has not.In this hour of aggressive, atheistic philosophy and passive Christianity (so-called), we need a Mordecai with a broken heart but a resolute will to lead us all in sackcloth and ashes. God pity us that we have swung from the Upper Room with its fire to the supper room with its smoke.Leonard RavenhillMeat for Men

We need more invasions from heaven, and priests who will come and minister before men only after they had first ministered to God in the holy place. We need priestly ministry, ministry from men who have first made sacrifice for themselves, who have first offered up their flesh, their own ambitions, their own vanity, and self-deceit, their own fear and greed and man-pleasing. We need men who have a heart to endure the ‘wearisome’ requirements of God, and who will submit to the painful dealings. We need men who are prepared to see blood spurt, and wounded flesh writhe and kick and gasp for breath. We need men who will stand steadfast and immovable, who will let death be worked in them to the end, who are willing to suffer the reproach and embarrassment of inner parts being exposed. Such men are rare. They are God’s priests, who alone are qualified to wield God’s sword, sanctified by blood. They alone have the disposition and utter fearlessness required to cut into the flesh of God’s people, and to expose the inward hidden parts of our being, to wound flesh and let its lifeblood flow out. Art Katz

Ordination covenantTozer did not take his ordination lightly. Afterwards he found a place of solitude on the old campground and there poured our his heart to God in reflection and prayer. The covenant he made before God on that occasion he later formalized and published in one of the first issues of Alliance Life he edited:O Lord, I have heard Thy voice and was afraid. Thou hast called me to an awesome task in a grave and perilous hour. Thou art about to shake all nations and the earth and also heaven, that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.O Lord, my Lord, Thou hast stooped to honor me to be Thy servant. No man taketh this honor upon himself save he who is called of God, as was Aaron. Thou hast ordained me Thy messenger to them that are stubborn of heart and hard of hearing. They have rejected Thee, the Master, and it is not to be expected that they will receive me, the servant.My God, I shall not waste time deploring my weakness or my unfitness for this work. The responsibility is not mine, but Thine. Thou hast said, “I knew thee—I ordained thee—I sanctified thee,” and Thou hast also said, “Thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.” Who am I to argue with Thee or to call into question Thy sovereign choice? The decision is not mine but Thine. So be it, Lord. Thy will, not mine, be done.Well do I know, Thou God of the prophets and the apostles, that as long as I honor Thee Thou wilt honor me. Help me therefore to take this solemn vow to honor Thee all my future life and labors, whether by gain or by loss, by life or by death, and then to keep that vow unbroken while I live.It is time, O God, for Thee to work, for the enemy has entered into Thy pastures and the sheep are torn and scattered. And false shepherds abound who deny the danger and laugh at the perils that surround Thy flock. The sheep are deceived by these hirelings and follow them with touching loyalty while the wolf closes in to kill and destroy. I beseech Thee, give me sharp eyes to detect the presence of the enemy; give me understanding to see and courage to report what I see faithfully. Make my voice so like Thine own that even the sick sheep will recognize it and follow Thee.Lord Jesus, I come to Thee for spiritual preparation. Lay Thy hand upon me. Anoint me with the oil of the New Testament prophet. Forbid that I should become a religious scribe and thus lose my prophetic calling. Save me from the curse that lies dark across the face of the modern clergy, the curse of compromise, of imitation, of professionalism. Save me from the error of judging a church by its size, its popularity or the amount of its yearly offerings. Help me to remember that I am a prophet—not a promoter, not a religious manager, but a prophet. Let me never become a slave to crowds. Heal my soul of carnal ambitions and deliver me from the itch for publicity. Save me from bondage to things. Let me not waste my days puttering around the house. Lay Thy terror upon me, O God, and drive me to the place of prayer where I may wrestle with principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world. Deliver me from over-eating and late sleeping. Teach me self-discipline that I may be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.I accept hard work and small rewards in this life. I ask for no easy place. I shall try to be blind to the little ways that could make my life easier. If others seek the smoother path, I shall try to take the hard way without judging them too harshly. I shall expect opposition and try to take It quietly when it comes. Or if, as sometimes it falleth out to Thy servants, I should have grateful gifts pressed upon me by Thy kindly people, stand by me then and save me from the blight that often follows. Teach me to use whatever I receive in such manner that it will not injure my soul or diminish my spiritual power.If in Thy permissive providence honor should come to me from Thy church, let me not forget in that hour that I am unworthy of the least of Thy mercies, and that if men knew me as intimately as I know myself they would withhold their honors or bestow them upon others more worthy to receive them.And now, O Lord of heaven and earth, I consecrate my remaining days to Thee; let them be many or few, as Thou wilt. Let me stand before the great or minister to the poor and lowly; that choice is not mine, and I would not influence it if I could. I am Thy servant to do Thy will, and that will is sweeter to me than position or riches or fame. I choose it above all things on earth or in heaven.Although I am chosen of Thee and honored by a high and holy calling, let me never forget that I am but a man of dust and ashes, a man with all the natural faults and passions that plague the race of men. I pray Thee, therefore, my Lord and Redeemer, save me from myself and from all the injuries I may do myself while trying to be a blessing to others. Fill me with Thy power by the Holy Spirit, and I will go in Thy strength and tell of Thy righteousness, even Thine only. I will spread abroad the message of redeeming love while my normal powers endure.Then, dear Lord, when I am old and weary and too tired to go on, have a place ready for me above, and make me to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting.Amen

...and took the blood and with his finger put some of it around on the horns of the altar, and purified the altar. Then he poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar and consecrated it, to make atonement for it. He also took all the fat that was on the entrails and the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys and their fat; and Moses offered it up in smoke on the altar. But the bull and its hide and its flesh and its refuse, he burned in the fire outside the camp, just as the Lord had commanded. (Leviticus 8:15b–17)This is the opposite of what man would do, which shows how much heaven is antithetical to earthly reckoning and consideration. We would have saved the thing that God destroys, and the things that we would have cast aside as disgusting and worthless are the very things that God calls the sacrifice. The flesh and the hide, which we would have savored as of great value, were burnt with the dung. They were not only to be burnt, but burnt outside the camp; such is God’s disgust for flesh. What men esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.The things that are a sweet savor to God are the inwards, the inner parts—not the outward things. God is not interested in the outer hide and the flesh; He counts that along with the dung. The inside, in the inner man, worked by Him in the hidden places, born of inward wrestling are the offerings of a sweet and pleasing savor before God. We have been guilty as contemporary Christians of offering our personalities, our winsomeness and our fleshly abilities to God, simply because we do not have the inward parts to offer, never having learned to rest or wait before God. We have despised the suffering, reproach and obscurity in which alone the sweet offerings are formed deep within us. We have not esteemed such things as God esteems them, and have preferred to do without them. We need the obedience and vision that will enable us to take our hide and flesh outside the camp, and to exclude it from the holy place, as well as from the pulpit. Art Katz

You cannot tell where the priest ends and the sacrifice begins, for the priest and the sacrifice are one. And the priest that is a priest indeed, and who himself is a sacrifice, is one who has got ‘fat,’ an accumulation or residue, or the inward workings of God in the hidden place. He knows God in the hidden place behind the veil of circumstances and outward feelings. God has dealt with him in ways that cannot be explained to men, ways that are scandalous, and that men look upon as reproach, ways that leave one utterly alone to suffer and endure. They are humiliations, things that God has wrought in you in the stillness and the quiet, things that are calculated to bring you to Him. Few have opened themselves to God for that dealing in that inner place, where something can be built up of a sweet savor. Most of us are protective, and we do not allow God or anyone else into that place. We have protected ourselves from the suffering and pain of it, and therefore, our whole life is lived on the outside.Art Katz

ObedienceThen he (Moses) presented the second ram, the ram of ordination; and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram. And Moses slaughtered it and took some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron’s right ear, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot. (Leviticus 8:22–23)”Hear, O Israel!” is the beginning of all of the commandments of God. Hearing is obeying, and obeying is doing. From the ear to the hand, from the hearing to the doing, there must be an unhindered response. Until God has the whole of us in every kind of act, however much it contradicts our natural disposition, then He does not yet have a priest. Blood on the toe suggests Divine control over the direction of our lives. Until we are prepared to remain in those tedious and demanding situations in which God has placed us, then the blood of consecration is not upon our toe. Our ‘goings’ as well as our ‘remainings’ have got to proceed out of a death to everything other than the word of the Lord. Art Katz

The book of Acts, Chapter 13, commences with a group of people ministering unto the Lord. In that mode of being, the Holy Spirit could say, “Set apart for Me Barnabbas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” These men were set apart, or consecrated, in a separation of such an ultimate kind that they would have been just as content to remain in the place of worship at Antioch as to be sent into the purposes of God. They had come to a place of death to themselves, even the religious desire to serve God, and to see fruit, and to be used, that it was all the same to remain as to go. It was a separation from the deepest and most subtle elements of ambition that hide themselves in the last place in which they can find refuge, namely, a religious and spiritual ambition to do for God. God has said that we will ‘die’ if we go before the time, and untold numbers have done that, and died—a short spurt, a little flurry of activity and recognition, and then lost to obscurity. The seven days of waiting is the final death to that last impulse to do for God, and to be found doing. When we have passed those seven days, then we are safe to minister in a priestly way for God, free from any consideration of the effect and benefit for ourselves. If there is something in us that wants to be heard, then our service is not priestly. We are a generation that is so ministry-minded, so doing-oriented that we have no concept for, and no disposition to see, the extraordinary investment that God requires in the preparation of His servants. God sets His premium on what we are, not what we do. If the doing does not flow from the being, then it is not apostolic.Art Katz

Waiting inaugurates the priestly ministry, but it is not the end of it. Waiting needs to be characteristic of our whole mind-set and disposition before God, not only for the time of ministry, but even in the process of ministry. Can you believe that one can be waiting, even in the midst of speaking? While you are speaking, you are waiting on God for the next statement. It is a remarkable disposition of an inward kind, even while one is active. This kind of waiting is virtually unknown to modern consideration, but needs to be restored. There is a conjunction between the willingness and the ability to be unseen and unheard, and to wait, that has everything to do with the power, the glory and the authority that is exhibited when we are called to be employed. One never knows when that calling will come, or even if it will come, but one has got to come to a priestly place where it makes no difference. To wait on God silently is as much to render Him priestly service as to go and speak, and only priestly service is effectual service. Art Katz

There is a cry of God for the restoration of priesthood that alone will save us from the superficial demonstrations that are ostensibly performed in His Name.Art Katz

True BlessingAfter the last sacrifice, and after the last waiting, and after the last waving of the sacrifice then,...Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them... (Leviticus 9:22a)Can you imagine what those hands looked like? They were steeped and impregnated with blood and gore, right into the fingernails and every pore. He would have looked more like a butcher than a priest. At the incident of the fashioning of a golden calf, God asked the people of Israel which of them would be on the Lord’s side, and it was the Levites who separated themselves from the rest of the profaned Israelites, and came to Moses, thereby standing on the Lord’s side. They were then required to put their swords on, and go in and out of the camp, and every man was to slay his friend, his father and his neighbor. By this act the priests were consecrated to God, and in fact, the word ‘consecrated’ means ‘hands full of blood.’ So here is Aaron lifting up his hands to bless the people. Only priests can raise holy hands above men and command blessing from heaven. Only the priest has the authority, only he has been in the presence of the Most High. One of the reasons why our attempts at blessing do not convey a blessing is because they are not priestly, and they are not priestly because they are not bloody. It did not cost anything, there was no sacrifice. It was easy and facile, the mere intonation of words that speak of blessing but do not constitute blessing. It was not a hand that has been dipped in blood. A priest is not a priest if he cannot pronounce blessing, and what is his blessing if it is only a mere verbalization without bringing the palpable blessing in fact?

Nothing reaches the heart but what is from the heart, or pierces the conscience but what comes from a living conscience.William Penn

If the Church fails to be radically sacredThe world will become radically profane.Art Katz quoting an unknown theologian

Accredited Ministry Truly accredited ministry is through suffering. Accredited ministry represents a tremendous victory, set in a background of great conflict. A determined effort is made through the age to discredit spiritual ministry, and to do so through the one engaged in that ministry. . .One who counts for the Lord, is a joint of supply, who can be of value in any way to the Lord’s people, and stand in His testimony, will know the enemy’s effort to render those spiritual values nil by discrediting. . . All ministry that is to be accredited will be bound up with suffering; a decision we have to make is as to the object of our ministry. A good many things can be taken into consideration, but there comes a point where all other things have to be ranged on one side, and one thing on the other side - the real spiritual value, without alloy: that which is wholly of God and not at all of man. In the measure in which that is true there will be suffering. To stand utterly for what is spiritual is a costly thing. There must be a willingness to be dealt with by the Lord, in such a way as to keep the ministry living and pure. All ministry which issues from such suffering is going to count. It may not be welcomed or desired by the mass, but where there is need and a call for that which we have gained through suffering, there will be response. But the treasure is in vessels of fragile clay; the vessel is being broken day by day.T. Austin-Sparks