TODAYS MAN. Evangelists Conference – RT Kendall.

TODAYS MAN. Evangelists Conference – RT Kendall Session 2.

1 Samuel 16 ¹ The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.” ² But Samuel said, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me.”
The LORD said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ ³ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.”  ⁴ Samuel did what the LORD said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, “Do you come in peace?”  ⁵ Samuel replied, “Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

⁶ When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.”  ⁷ But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

⁸ Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “The LORD has not chosen this one either.” ⁹ Jesse then had Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, “Nor has the LORD chosen this one.” ¹⁰ Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The LORD has not chosen these.” ¹¹ So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?”

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered, “but he is tending the sheep.” Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down ^[a] until he arrives.” ¹² So he sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features.
Then the LORD said, “Rise and anoint him; he is the one.”  ¹³ So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power.

In this first verse we see three classes of persons – Saul (yesterdays man). Today we look at Samuel – a type of today’s man – Samuel – and he anoints tomorrows man.

To get to the place where its easy (the anointing) there is a cost. To be today’s man or woman you have to go outside your comfort zone. God wants to see how much he loves you, so he takes you to a place where you could be embarrassed or misunderstood.

The place that’s outside your comfort zone then becomes your new comfort zone. Then he calls you on again, and we wish it wasn’t that way, we think we paid our dues – but he always calls us on.

Samuel had been the man who none of his words fell to the ground, but God tells him to go and anoint the next king while the existing one is alive and well. Danger is required to have the anointing.  The willingness to bear the stigma.

Comes from a pure greek word – that Paul used, I bear in my body the stigmata – a tattoo burned into the body with a hot iron- on slaves, who’d run away, for stealing. Embrace the stigma – count it such an honour that you get to do it. You used to avoid it.

Cf when God said to Jonah – go to Ninevah. Jonah said, NO, and God said, “Really?” Then in the belly of the fish, Jonah prays that he may get to do what God wanted him to do!

The flesh always wants to destigmatise (that everyone will like it) the gospel.

1)   Do you know for sure, if you were to die today – you’d go to heaven?

2)   And if God were to ask you, ‘Why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say?’ Why would I ask those questions of a bunch of evangelists? He knew a woman who onteh 4^th class teaching Evangelism Explosion, became a Christian.

Suppose those questions were asked – what would you say?

What would you say, for Question 2?

If we looked through the lists – would we say?

I have tried to live a good, godly life. – LOST

I was brought up in a Christian home – you had a head start – LOST

Baptised? LOST.

I’ve kept the ten commandments – LIAR.

I’ve kept the beatitudes. You’re a bigger liar.

What would you write? The more words you wrote, the worst.

All that’s needed? JESUS DIED.

That’s your gospel. If you don’t preach it, you haven’t grasped it. If it comes out of you, it’s in you – out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

What was wrong with Lakeland? How many times did Todd Bentley preach the gospel? Not once.

Two vital words – EXPIATION & PROPITIATION.

Expiation = what the blood does for us.

Propitiation = what the blood does for God. Turns his wrath away from us.

The world is excited about words of knowledge etc., but we get to heaven by nothing else – our words may not help, they could hurt. It’s offensive to say its all about the cross and ONLY about the cross.

1801 – The Cane Ridge revival in Kentucky. The power of God fell, when a Methodist lay preacher stood on a tree stump. 15,000 gathered. He spoke on 2 Cor 5:10.

When he finished, 500 were on the floor as though dead. But six or seven hours later they came up shouting and hundreds of others fell.  Out of that came a certain way of preaching, breathless sounds, but 15 years after the preachers were putting it on, it wasn’t real any more.

We may like the liturgy, the worship style – it’s a comfort zone. We have to be willing to keep moving on. Even though we may not like it. We cann think the familiar, the nostalgic, is God.

When he was at Westminster Chapel – hundreds covenanted agreed to pray for the manifest Holy Spirit, and an openness in us to receive him, however he chooses to come.

Just after that was printed, he was talking with Lyndon Bowring and Charlie Colchester, who started to talk about, “This Toronto thing.” What?

‘They lay hands on people and they fall over, laughing!’

RT didn’t want it to be of God. Found the idea offensive. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. A few days later Ken Costa invited him, ‘Come and speak with me about what the Bible says on about testing the Spirits’

RT came to warn, but when they talked, he was smitten- this is of God! And it means trouble.

Years before – he’d stepped out and nearly lost his job when he had Arthur Blessit speak. He thought, “I have paid my dues – Never again!” and God said, “Really?”

So he stood before his congregation and said, “This is of God, what’s happening at HTB.” And it was then a huge offense, now it’s fairly comfortable!

When Samuel entered the town the elders trembled. And Samuel’s probably trembling too. We should be trembling when we’re preaching!

We can get used to something that’s not right with us. We want it to stay like it is. Like when he lost a filling, but it didn’t hurt – and after a few days he loved sticking his tongue in the cavity.

The leaning tower of Pisa – they got architects in, and gave instructions – ‘Don’t correct the tilt, but keep it from falling.’

People don’t want their problems solved, they want them understood.

When Wesley saw George Whitefield going to preach in the fields, he was at first offended. Later he went to the field.

Later people barked like dogs and fell down. Wesley said, “A lot of that is not God. Stamp it out.”

Whitefield replied, “When you stamp out the false, you stamp out what is real too.”

Part of the stigma! We’d like revival to come in a tidy package, but it’s EMBARRASSING – yet you have to go with it and let them say what they will.

Samuel said, “Consecrate yourselves.”

Verse 6.

To be todays man – You have to be willing to change your mind.

When he saw Eliab, it was obvious –logical, the first born. But God said, No.

‘Do I have to admit I’m wrong – in front of all these people?’

There are people who have changed their position but they put something in print, so they won’t retract it.

The greatest freedom is having nothing to prove! Samuel said, “I got it wrong.”

Is it Abinadab? No

Is it Shammah? – Samuel’s feeling more embarrassed now! All seven gone! He must think his prophetic gift’s gone now.

But the last person anyone would have thought, was the one in God’s mind!

The one who wasn’t even invited to the great occasion. Not even told about it.

Ever missed church and everyone says, “You missed it!” (Thanks God!) You can feel left out, but God knows where you are and he will find you. God is never too late, or too early – he’s always just on time.

David had no preparation time, but he’s the one. The new King!

You may feel the most unlikely person. But that’s the way God works.

When RT met Rodney Howard Browne for the first time. Breakfast meeting. At the time he was persona non-grata at the time. But RT sensed something in him he’d never felt before, and asked, “I’d like you to come and pray in my pulpit, and pray for my wife (she’d had a cough for three years, nothing Drs could do, she couldn’t sleep! She was also seriously depressed.). She would not have gone to one of his meetings, but he came to pray for her in the morning. 5 minutes, mostly in tongues. And then – she was instantly healed of the cough! Later she went to one of his meetings, and the depression was gone.

He will put you in awkward situations. To take hou to where his anointing is.

Samuel had to break with the regime of which he was the central figure. He’d warned them they shouldn’t have a king, but they rejected his advice (God said, ‘It’s me they rejected – don’t take it personally). After God said that, he set off as if it was his idea in the first place.

But then he chose Saul, and when he fell – Samuel GRIEVED. He didn’t gloat! He didn’t say, “I told you so.” He was the only one who knew the truth about Saul.

On Ronald Reagan’s desk. “There is no limit to the person who doesn’t care who gets the credit.”

Being Tomorrow’s man involves loneliness.

RT had an experience when he was a young preacher. His grandmother had bought him a lovely car. He had a Damascus road experience. The glory of the Lord filled the car, and 2 verses came to mind, “Casting all your cares on me, because he cares on you.” And “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

And then Jesus is there, praying for him. Interceding for RT. And there was conversation he couldn’t hear. An hour later, he heard Jesus say, “He wants it!” The Father said, “He can have it”

And his body was flooded with warmth as the person of Jesus was then more real than any human.

Thinking everyone would be excited, but his father said, “You have broken with God!” and his grandmother took the car back.

He said to his Dad, “I’ll have an international ministry.” When? “One year from now!” In fact, for five years then he was door to door vacuum cleaner salesman.

You may feel that you’re tomorrows man. Waiting.

22 years later, he heard his dad say, “Son, I am proud of you – you were right and I was wrong.”

Lakeland visit

The top shot is ‘Tiger Town,’ the baseball park we went to the first night. The journey of about 20 hours in total from the UK flight to finally finding it!

The other is the Lakeland Center, where night after night we saw the most amazing healing miracles.

I have a video of the moment when Hannah gave her testimony about having had her back healed, just minutes before. It was on God TV too, but I captured it. It’s 77mb so over the amount I can upload (?) unfortunately! This healing happened independent of anyone, just in the worship – like we read about when Jesus healed a paralytic, ‘the power of the Lord was present to heal.’

She felt the power of God go through her and sensed that she was healed (if you wonder whether such ‘feelings’ are biblical please read what happened to the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment).

Now you could feel that, and do nothing to test it, but she wanted to make sure – and she’s brave – so she bent down and touched her toes three times in front of me! Amazing! If God hadn’t healed her I’d have told her off because the physio said that was the last thing she should do with the way her back was damaged. On the video she’s got this amazed look on her face as she’s bending down and touching the ground, doing what we were told she could not do having had the diagnosis (confimed by MRI scan) of degenerative disc disease. Her mum cleared out her room – it was full of boxes of strong pain killers! She doesn’t need them now – praise God.

This coming Friday evening at 7.30pm we’re having another meeting with prayer for healing, at East Horsley Village hall.

THE WRONG QUESTION

Well there’s been interesting responses to yesterday’s post – to say the least. First off, the traffic to the blog has taken off exponentially, with hundreds of new readers and subscribers (if that’s you – welcome, if you’d like to, click over there on the right!). I suppose it’s not my skilful prose but the subject matter that’s drawing attention from all over the world, it’s the question I posed yesterday which still stands about Lakeland – is it revival?

Some people say yes. They look at people being healed, recognise that were there’s a lot of Spirit there’s also going to be a lot of ‘flesh’ and can come to terms with that – no, rejoice in it. It’s been wonderful that there have been so many people who have known about Hannah’s back problems, and are rejoicing with those who rejoice over its healing, and thanking God (by the way the girls went to pray for people at the Leatherhead theatre last night and I’m told it was amazing time!).

I’ve also had one or two e-mails via the blog which I ended up spamming because they were from sources I didn’t recognise, and when I looked at the content of the sites they linked to, they seemed to have already made their minds up that this is not of God but has to be of the devil. A tattooed bloke who shakes and shouts? People crying and laughing and carrying on? All too weird – certainly not from God. They have never been, they’ve never seen, they’ve never sensed the presence and power of God there, but they know it’s wrong; illegitimate – of the devil.

This morning I was reading with my men’s group out of John 9. You know what comes before that? The end of John 8. Read it and you’ll see that some ascribed to Jesus and his miracles both illegitimacy and evil origin. (Verse 48 is particularly nice!).

In John 9 Jesus comes across the man born blind. His disciples spend time theologising about his suffering and its origin. They debate the human condition, bewail the sins that cause it. Their question? “Who sinned?” All they don’t do, is anything that helps.

I like how the Message puts Jesus’ reply. “You’re asking the wrong question.”

I’m not saying we shouldn’t weigh the source, but if you’re asking, who sinned – the answer is… EVERYONE. Todd Bentley, Paul Cain, me, you. If you look online you’ll find some evidence and lots of accusation about anyone and everyone involved (by the way, still reading that biography of Whitefield, a fantastic preacher and a wonderful godly man now so often hailed and lauded. Boy did he take some stick!).

I’m not so naive to imagine some of the accusations against Bentley et al. are correct. But Jesus was pretty clear it’s not just people who live in glass houses who shouldn’t throw stones (in fact, if you lived in a glass house, where would you shower?). I for one wouldn’t want all my sins paraded on-line, and people spending their lives looking for things wrong with me would find plenty of material, but I thought the devil was the accuser?

(PS I just got the following comment, which I’m not approving, to show the love that abounds here from a brother or sister…) You vile deceiving heretics and enemies of the gospel when will you repent and face reality and the true gospel of Christ and His sound doctrines the HOLY BIBLE. You filthy enemies of God you will pay dearly for supporting your fellow tools of Satan who lead others into doctrines of devils so they may blaspheme God and end up in hell along with you if you don’t repent. You filthy vile deceivers you dare call yourself Christian. Sick filthy heretic.

If the wrong question is ‘Who sinned?” Maybe the better question is, “Who saves?”

Jesus went on to do something, well, pretty weird. It’s almost too embarrassing to think of the Son of God making spit-mud pies! Then he does something degrading! He smears it on the blind man’s eyes – where’s the respect for dignity or decorum there? He even puts some of the responsibility for whether he’s healed or not on the man, by getting him to do something that looks like faith (he has to walk round the place and wash off the mud himself, Jesus didn’t lead him by the hand.).

Jesus didn’t have to do any of that. He could have just said, “Be healed!” (even ‘Bam!’ as Mr Bentley does?) as on other occasions. He could have just done ‘Drive By Healings’ if he wanted and not even engaged with the man. People baulk at the idea of ‘touch your TV screen and get the healing…” but didn’t Jesus sometimes say to the effect of, “Go on home, I’m not coming to lay hands on anyone, I don’t have to be there physically to heal spiritually.”

And to compound it all, having done it in the wrong way, he does it on the wrong day! That’s what really got the religious riled. (See my blog entry ‘What Day is it?)

I discussed with the guys this morning whether we thought Jesus did that on purpose. It’s been said, “He offends the mind to reveal the heart.” Was he provoking a reaction to see whether they were more concerned to protect things being done ‘properly’ (even if nothing was done?).

It’s entirely possible to have the form of godliness but denying the power thereof – go to a church near you this Sunday to confirm that; or look at the dire stats and predictions published yesterday, much being the consequence of just such a travesty – a church with pomp but no power and presence. Moses said to God, “We’re not going anywhere with out you!” But too often we’re not going anywhere because we’re without Him. The glory days are consigned to a golden age, with people worshipping a (Deist?) God who used to be powerful (he even wrote a good book!), but now has kind of lost His divine stuff.

Actually, Jesus didn’t waste a lot of time with people who’d already made their minds up not to believe (verse 22 tells us they’d ‘agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was the Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue’). ‘There’s none so blind…’

They saw a man born blind saying he’d been healed. They said:

• He wasn’t a man; we’ll ask his parents instead!
• He wasn’t born blind; he must be a liar!
• He wasn’t the same man; because that man was blind!
• He wasn’t a good man; probably a confederate, and who includes the testimony of crazies who say they’ve been healed?

Anyway, everyone knew his sickness was his own fault, or a judgement from God, his cross to bear – to perfect him through suffering…

The ex blind man’s answers to their questions? Track them…

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know if he’s a sinner or not.”

“Why won’t you listen?”

“Do you want to follow him too?”

“One thing I know – I was blind, now I see.”

I don’t know whether Lakeland’s a revival. I do know from visiting I’ve got my first love for Jesus back and I’m and full of the Holy Spirit to overflow more than I have been for years (obviously a work of the devil?).

I don’t know whether some (or all) of the people who get to minister on the platform are ‘sinners.’ I do know many sinners were repentant and trusting Jesus for the first time.

I don’t know why not everyone was healed. I do know on the nights I was there God healed so many people the queues were full both sides of the stage, and I know my own daughter joined that line! (“Ask her, she is of age!”)

So before you send me a link to your website explaining why the devil’s behind it all, deceiving and deluding – let me ask whether your God still does that kind of thing, today.

If not, I’ll stick with mine, thanks.