Chapter 7
Apostolic Preaching: The Authoritative Word    

	   ...."just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. And for this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God's message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe"....    1 Thessalonians 2:11-13 NASB

     Romanticism and idealism are the last stubborn holdouts of humanism. And for this reason many of us are disillusioned with the church. It does not measure up to our "ideal" and thus we become disillusioned and withdraw ourselves. God wants us to face it in its utter reality, even in its sublime "ordinariness" and to embrace it in its "present infantile condition". He desires us not to despise this "child", but to pick it up as Simeon did of old as it came into the Temple for dedication and to see that what he saw in it: "my eyes have seen the salvation of the Lord". Simeon saw it in an unpretentious child, new-formed and immature, we need to see that also and embrace that child in its present condition that it might grow in grace and come into the maturity of a son. This is not my subject for this morning. My subject this morning is "apostolic preaching: the authoratative word". The word that goes beyond mere instruction and beyond that which is "informational". This is a creative word - a word that comes as "event". The word that produces change and establishes. We need to come to expect such a "word" for part of our "maturity" will be reflected by that anticipation. The whole respect and reverence for the Word of God and the word that is preached and spoken needs to be elevated in the church. It is remarkable how much I hear spoken against the preached word. I sense that the word "preaching" is being deprecated and devalued and lowered. God says that He has exalted His Word above His Name. In the beginning was the Word, the Spirit of God brooded across the face of the deep that was without form and God spoke and said: "Let there be light". On the Mount of Transfiguration three of the choicest disciples saw Jesus in His transcendent glory together with Moses and Elijah, the prophets of the Law, and being the kind of impulsive man that Peter was he said: "Let us build for you", and while he had spoke a bright cloud came over them and the voice of the Father rang out and said, "This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him, and when they heard that they fell on their faces and they were sore afraid", but Jesus and the grace of God came and touched them and said: "Rise and be not afraid". This was more than just a little courtesy, that was the Creative Word that established the heavens and the earth speaking to us not just a reason for not being afraid, but the very enablement and creative power not to fear because He said so! He spoke a word into our being, a creative word that established an "event" - that effected a change. It was not spoken just to inform. We need increasingly to expect this kind of apostolic and prophetic speaking! Men and women who bring us words not just to strengthen our understanding, but actually "establish" our foundations.
    	I hope that you do not think that this is a boasting, but I must draw on whatever modest experience I have had because I am seeing in my own experience that this is becoming increasingly real. About a year ago we came to Galilee in Israel. We had been there many times before. They had a kind of a shabby, Saturday night charismatic turnout. A bunch of transients that moved in and out with no real stability. People just coming for some hopeful fellowship. We came without any intention. We were just simply there by the Providence of God, but some earnest men who lived in that area had an anticipation of our coming. They came to us saying that they sensed God desired to do something through us. I did not sense anything - I was tired. So they called a special meeting and the disillusioned came, the dejected and the hopeless, those who had been waiting for something to be formed in Galilee and had just about given up. And I spent the day in fasting and prayer. We came that night with two or three Bibles and we spoke. The Lord gave the theme: "the Body of Christ". Do you know what happened? The Body of Christ was birthed in Galilee by the Word which came forth. They were not instructed about the Body of Christ, that may have come incidentally, but the Word established the event. I invite you to go and to feel and to taste and to see there is an established expression of the Body of Christ in that place now. About a week ago I spent an evening with five of its elders who recited to me the blessings that had come to them through the persecution and harassment. I will tell you how real that entity is. The powers of Hell have raised up against it and the windows of its meeting place have been smashed and the building has been set fire to. The mayor has invited them to leave town, but they are not leaving. Something has been birthed, planted and established by the Word that came. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 2:11-13:

      ....just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God Who calls you into His own Kingdom and glory. And for this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God's message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe"....

       Not just believe abstractly, but who believe "that the word that has come to them through a man is not the word of men, but they believed it for what it really was - the Word of God. And because they believed that, it performed a work in them.
      This is how God changes us from glory to glory - by the word that performs the work. This is why my spirit is rejoicing today. For a work has been performed in these meetings beyond even your conscious understanding. Because the Word that has come to you has not been the word of men, but the Word of God! 
      Do you want to hear something interesting? There is nothing that has turned men to a frenzy and a fury against me more than I should insist on that. They say, " Oh come on Art, get with it. We know you are given to exaggerations; to using picturesque phrases when you say that it is the Word of God. It sounds too much like "you". It is your personality. It is your accent. How could it really be God's Word? If it was God's Word it would sound differently. Do you see what one loses when they are "romantic" and "idealistic". Because one projects "their" image and refuses to accept the image that is God's? 
      From the preaching point of view last night was not a delight, and that has been true on several occasions in these days. It had nothing to do with my enjoyment or even my selection for I had only one thing before me: to be obedient to speak the Word that is "given", which alone performs the work in those who hear and believe. If you choose not to believe that, it becomes for you another kind of word - one that you like or you don't like - one that is interesting or not interesting, and thus you lose the entire value and the word cannot perform its work. Do you understand what is in God's heart now - to elevate the whole expectancy of the church in terms of the "word" that comes to them instead of coming to the place of assembly with a weary kind of resignation saying, "another service", they come in anticipation of a "creative event" by the Word which is spoken, and by such continual speakings they are moved from glory to glory. How else shall we go from where we presently are to where God bids us "apostolically" to be, except by the word which is sent and by the word which is spoken. And we ministers are guilty! Do you know why you do not expect to hear that type of word? Because we have not the faith to believe that we are speaking it. There needs to be an elevation not only for the congregation but for the ministers of God's Word as well. A whole qualitative elevation of our faith and a kind of insane jealousy that we will not speak anything other than the word that is given by God. If the Lord had not met me early this morning while I was in communion with Him "within the veil" then I would presently be silent! There has got to be for us a motivation more than our "reputation" as speakers, or the fear of men, of whom we are concerned not to offend or disappoint. Perhaps there could not be a healthier tonic for the church itself than to introduce them to "silence" and to announce to their astonishment that I have not a word to speak from God and that I am not going to fill the silence with some merely good thing. This is the type of "jealousy" to which we must return if we are going to have what Paul speaks of in his first letter to the Thessalonians. It is the word that is "given", and where is it given - the place of communion. 

     	...."There I will speak with you and give you all in commandment to the sons of Israel"....  Exodus 25:22

     	I am glad that the Lord uses the word commandment rather than the word "suggestion". This is why we are so infantile - nothing is required of us other than to bring our bodies to the Sunday service, put a few dollars in the collection plate and sing a few choruses. There is no "requirement", no "authoritative word" expressed towards us, no demand made. The sermon is a performance. It is part of the requirement of the "church-hour". It is a sermonizing rather than an "event", and I tell you that we pay a heavy and severe price for these things! It is not simply that we are not receiving the creative word that changes, but something negative is happening, a dulling of our spirits, a dulling of our discernment and the creating of an atmosphere of "drowsiness" in our congregations. The alternative to an authoritative word is painful. Perhaps you have the faith to believe that the word that you are hearing from me today is a word that is "given", and you believed it last night also, but have you come to the place of faith that you can believe it for the word you speak? You have been too long passive. There has been too much of a "professionalism" in both the preachers and the laymen. But how about the word that we speak even in conversation, or as we exhort one another daily, or speak the truth in love? Is it mere "human opinion" that is being expressed or God's very Word? We need to call a moratorium on all "casual" speaking and wait upon God for a renewing of our reverence for the spoken word. Not just from platforms and pulpits, but even in our daily conversations, and even what we are speaking to the world. I have seen judgement come on the basis of words that I have spoken. It wasn't that I said "thus saith the Lord" - such and such will happen to you if will not do this or that - but I spoke to them a word from God and they chose not to receive it as God's Word. They discounted it as being only a man's "opinion" and now that church is no more and that man is no more. I am beginning to sense the awesome fear of a word that comes from God to men and is not received. Is your faith ready for this? Do you know what God is actually after - an entire apostolic and prophetic body that shall command the "elements" just like Elijah. ...."It shall not rain or dew according to my word"....    Imagine a mere man commanding the elements with the authority of God Himself! This is not a privilege that is to be allowed a man who is still jerked to and fro by his own subjectivity. I tell you that when God will allow such speaking through a mortal mouth, such a man has been adequately dealt with at the hand of God and you cannot tell where the man ends and God begins! His thought is God's thought and his word is God's word! God is wanting such a people in the earth. How many times have people spoken to me a prophetic word about my own calling - "you shall be a thrashing machine with fine teeth and you shall thresh the hills and cut them down to chaff" - and I swelled with the importance of my calling, and indeed it is true that God has made me such a vessel, but they did not tell me this: "but do you know who is going to get threshed first?"
     Do you know why I have such a high reverence for the spoken word - I have paid my dues for it. I gave a message many years ago at the Full Gospel businessmen's conference in Washington D.C. I was a young believer just barely beyond the giving of my own testimony - having fasted and waited upon God for two days for this one message - I have since fasted and waited on God for five days for one message - but what a message! When it came forth it was "devastation" to two thousand people who went berserk and the world has yet really to hear of it but they will. But on that occasion earlier in Washington D.C. in the simplicity and naivety that I had as a young believer, I just simply spoke the words that God gave. They thought that I was going to give a "Jewish testimony", but the Lord gave me a message on "Eunuch for Christ's sake", and I myself was too young to realize how radical this message was. The Sword of the Lord went into hundreds of people and laid them there in two different audiences. One, ready to hang on my neck with gratitude for the word which had gone forth that was very life, and another number, equally as great, ready to murder me. I was astonished by the effect and I knew that something very deep had happened because the Full Gospel officials behind me did not know what to do and had to call for their "emergency panic measure", and we all stood up and sang the Lord's Prayer. It was the final day of the conference and that night all of the speakers and their wives were invited to the penthouse apartment of the president of the organization. That was the night I learned what it meant to be a stranger and a pilgrim and a sojourner. When we came to the buffet table men turned their shoulder and I felt like scum - like the offscourings of the world - the least of all men who had brought such a terrible word of offense and caused this painful controversy that had gone beyond the "testimony" that had been expected. But the moment that I had finished speaking that message that night - and this has happened several times since exactly the same way - a man came up to me telling me he is a prophet sent of God, a Jewish prophet, an officer in the Full Gospel businessmen's organization, who said he had the mind of the Lord, and he told me that I had missed the Lord and done grievous damage to God's people. He told me that I needed immediately to go back to the microphone and recant the message! Do you know how I felt when I heard that? If I had a choice I would have preferred to have been "physically stabbed" than to receive the standing "accusation" that came forth! The first thoughts that came to me were "could it be true - maybe I have missed the mark - even after waiting on the Lord and fasting, and how about the past? What about the other things that I had spoken - could I have been wrong in them?  What assurance do I have for the future?" It was a devastating accusation and the Lord was not there to say don't worry about it and tell me that I was His faithful servant and His mouthpiece. You know what I heard? Nothing! I went into self-imposed exile for a time and I eventually left the country and went to my wife's country - Denmark - where I could not understand a word they were speaking. Taken by my hand by my children who would interpret for me as if I was an imbecile. It was a "wilderness" experience for a man who was jealous of words and their meaning. I refused all invitations, never again desiring to go up on the platform. The Devil used this opportunity to ride me relentlessly. "Whoever said that you were a preacher - you never should have gone beyond your testimony - you should have remained a high school teacher - whoever said you were called - look at all the damage you have done - you thought you had the mind of the Lord - you are egotistical" - and I would say right after these thoughts "that is right"! For six months I groaned in that condition.  I burned with the unspeakable shame that this man might be right and he was calling me long distance to remind me to "recant". It was trial by fire in the silence of God for six months. In the six month I was invited to speak and I had a release from the Lord and so I went for a series of messages in Denmark and while I was preparing myself I was reading from Watchman Nee's trilogy on the "Spiritual Man", and to my utter astonishment there was a reference to the "eunuch for Christ's sake"! He invoked the very same Scriptures that I used that night six months ago and then he said if you miss this by the spirit and consider this carnally there will be a very great offense! When I read that a very great release came, a lifting of the burden, a deep vindication from God that I had indeed spoken His Word. I have taken a lot of time this morning to describe this episode for only one reason: that if the Word of God is going to be restored to its exalted status as a word that is given to us as "event", and not only in the expectancy of those who hear it, but the conviction of men called to speak it, we need to be reminded that the price will not be cheap! There is a "cost" for this kind of word and periodically God will require it just to remind us how holy a thing it is to speak the word of God. 
      Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood this. He says the Word which came from Heaven in Jesus Christ desires to return again in the form of human speech. God Himself desires to be present in His Word. God Himself desires to speak His Word in the church. I would add also, to the world.
      Because God has opened doors for us increasingly in these days - my meeting with the chief justice of the supreme court in an African nation - the head of the department of justice - was a supernatural opening. We did not walk in with our hat in our hands. We walked in with boldness and authority and we told this woman that "righteousness exalts a nation" and that there is a more than a causal connection between poverty and drought in Africa and unrighteousness in government, and we asked her where she was when the law was passed that confiscated personal property. We said to her, "Don't you realize that that is as much robbery when performed by a nation as when performed by an individual"? We took every risk of being thrown into a jail and rotting as white men daring to bring such charge to a black government. But do you know what this woman did? She took prolific notes and she asked us to pray for her and for her whole household. She did this because the word that came to her was not "opinion" it was the Word of God! It was a "visitation". It did not come as suggestion, but as authority and this is precisely the type of word that needs increasingly to be spoken. It must begin first in our congregations, for God desires to be present in His Word. He desires it to be spoken in His church and also, through the church to the world. We need to repent of the "casual" way that we have been speaking up until now. We must stop the shallow abuse and misuse of the Word of God - playing with the Scriptures as if it was God's provision for us to "perform" a sermon. Paul says to Timothy: "Preach the word"! He did not say "sermonize". "Be instant in season and out of season" (2 Timothy 4). Reprove, rebuke with all longsuffering. Here is our mandate! This should be the essential substance of all our preaching. The purpose of preaching is not to construct pretty sermons and to enjoy the Word of God as if we are spiritual "sensualists". The Word of God is given for practical purpose - to reprove, to rebuke and to exhort - but how many of our congregations can accept this. They are coming for something else on Sunday. They want to be "comforted". They want to hear a calming word. After all, they say, they have had a heavy week. Can you see that the whole construct of our church - its whole mentality is wrong!
      I charge you before God, Paul says, and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge....preach the word! Do not construct pretty sermons that are "doctrinally sound" - that will bring a soothing and syrupy effect to the audience, for that makes you a "performer". If we are going to have an "apostolic word", a creative word, that works a work in those that hear it. It is going to come through men and women who are not ruled through the "fear of men" but by the "fear of God". Those who will wait for His Word, not finding it in their concordances, but wherever it is that God bid them come to commune with Him - within the veil - in the holiest place of all - between the cherubim and above the ark in the place of mercy, from between and above the tensions and the contradictions and the opposite tugs and pulls. He is a real God with a real purpose for real men and He says: "I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandments for the sons of Israel". This is why Paul had to say to his people: 

	...."pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak"....Ephesians 6:19 NASB 

     	If Paul had to plead for such prayer for himself - a man who had an encyclopedic knowledge of apostolic things - a student under the rabbi Gamaliel - then how much more must we discard any casual approach to the ministry of God's Word! Paul would not so much as dream to fashion his "own" words. "Pray for me", he said "that utterance might be given", then what shall we say?
     	Jesus said the words that I speak are not my words but the words which My Father gives. Let me ask you a question this morning. How assured are you in your place in Christ? How secure are you in Him? Are you secure enough that you have nothing to prove and nothing to demonstrate because your identity is so established in God - are you so accepted in the Beloved that you do not have to prove anything for your ministry or for yourself?     You do not have to exhibit your intelligence, your spirituality, your experience, but rather you must wait for the Word that is given. If Jesus would not so much as speak His own word what shall we presume to speak? Indeed, it is "humbling" to wait for that which is "given" especially when one is clever in themselves and even has a "flair" with words, and could even cut quite an impressive figure. To be utterly dependent upon God for that which is given is a "humiliation" for proud men and when it comes they will not enjoy it!
     	With the exception of a few sessions I have not been ecstatic about anything that I have spoken in these meetings in the sense that I have "enjoyed" it or that it has given me opportunity to exhibit myself, but I am fully confident that from the beginning of these days to this concluding session, the words that I have spoken are not "my" words, but the words that are "given". There have been occasions in these days when I did not think that I had the physical strength to go from the front seat to the platform. I was in the strangest kind of disorientation, and initially had not the faintest intimation of what the Lord's theme was and thus I had to come risking every failure, not only in your sight, but in the sight of all those with whom I have to do. God indeed knows how to set the stage for an utterly humiliating collapse and so the "flesh" begins to itch and activate itself. It whispers "why don't you preach this Art? How about that good sermon that you used last month - they will love it! It will be a great success and everybody will be happy!"
      We must never be satisfied with just a "good thing". This is an apostolic jealousy for a word which is "given" in communion with God and in no other place. Moses received his instruction at the top of the Mount of God, where he spent forty days and forty nights neither eating nor drinking. He came up into the presence of God that he might receive the tablets of the Law, and right from the very first invitation we see the whole genius of God with man:
      "Come up unto Me and be there and I will give you the stone tablets with the Law and the commandments which I have written that thou mayest teach them." God says to all with "any" fleshly ambition: "Do not think that you are just going to come up and grab it from Me and go. I know your craven religious ambition to establish your preaching reputation, but I am a holy God and you are not going to be preaching some abstract thing from My Word. 
      The first requirement of apostolic preaching is ever and always this: come up unto Me, not for what you are going to receive from Me, but to Me for My own sake and be there - spirit, soul and body - in totality, all that you are with all that I am and then I will give you the "tablets of the Law"." 
      This is the requirement of God, and yet some remain at liberty to "rape" His Book, to violate it, to extract Scriptures and to "make" sermons, and what a price we have paid for our "submission" and "authority systems", and our other little fashions and games that we have charismatically played. But God is calling us to a higher thing in these days - the restoration of apostolic reality and glory by men and women who do not take their liberty with the Scriptures, but receive from God the explicit word that is given in only one place - in His presence! "Come up to Me and be there" - this in itself is the apostolic message. What the world is dying for is not information about God, but men and women who will communicate God Himself. This is the only thing that shall save us from becoming mere technicians and from being the victims of yet another religious phraseology.  The world needs the knowledge of God which is exuded by men and women who speak to them out of the presence of God. The world does not know how to live and that is why it chases after its drugs and its eroticisms and sensualities. They have no idea of what it means to "be there". They need apostles who will teach them how to live and how to "be there" totally and to enjoy the depths of fellowship with both God and their fellow man. To "come up" is not an easy coming and indeed no "going up" is ever an easy going, yet it is the only place of "true" communion.
     In conclusion I refer you to 2 Corinthians 2:16 where it is written:  ...."Who is sufficient for these things?... and in the Amplified translation it states: ...."Who is able for such a ministry as this".... 

and then he answers it: 

     	...."for we are not like so many hucksters making a trade, peddling God's Word, short-measuring and adulterating the divine message, but as men of sincerity and the purest motive, commissioned and sent by God, we speak His message in Christ the Messiah, in the very sight and presence of God".... vs.17 (Amplified Trans.)
	We must speak the Word of God not in the "presence of men", that we might be slapped on the back by them, but in the sight and presence of God at "all times". We must have an apostolic consciousness and come to a deep revelation of the "sacrament" of the spoken word and claim it not only before men and to men, but also in the very sight and presence of God. I am very conscious of that this morning. Paul says that we shall be held accountable for everything that we have done in our bodies, both good and bad. In an earlier generation men used to speak of the pulpit as the "holy desk", but that was before "charismatic personalities", full of jokes and cute quips, warming the audience up to themselves. There is indeed something that needs to be restored children - the holiness of God's own Word which He has exalted above His own name. It is written "In the beginning was the Word" and in 2 Corinthians 3:4-5 Paul says:

     	...."such is the reliance and confidence we have in Christ, not that we are fit to be sufficient in ourselves, to form judgements or to claim or count anything as coming from us, but our power and our ability and our sufficiency are from God"....

	     Is there any greater delight for us as preachers than to have a reliance and a confidence toward God, not something that is based on our own ability - as though there was anything coming from us that could accomplish the work of God - but that all of our power and ability and sufficiency are from God. For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things to Whom be the glory forever.
	     I got to bed after midnight last night and was wakened again at 4:30 a.m. and I have not slept since. I have been going on day and night for weeks and months and trip after trip in the same way. I am saying these things for one reason: to God be the glory! We must have a reliance and confidence through Christ and we must "know" that we are not qualified within ourselves, and indeed, what a piece of "foolishness" we are in ourselves. We have no "theological qualifications" to deliver the Word of God. What God appoints God anoints! If you are speaking His Word you do not have to "buttress" it with your own "natural personality". It does not require your "charm" to make it succeed, for He gives the Spirit without measure to those who bear His Word. God is not only speaking something this morning He is demonstrating it, that your faith might rise to a new apostolic place and that you might be permanently "ruined" and never go back to anything less, but that you should insist "His" Word and His Word only from this time forth, for He is quite able and willing to give it if we will come up unto Him and be there, for it is He who has qualified us and made us fit to be worthy and sufficient as ministers of the New Covenant! And then Paul says in verse 12: 

      ...."since we have such glorious hope, such joyful and confident expectation we speak very freely and openly and fearlessly"....(Ampl.Trans.)

      Then, in 2 Corinthians 4:1-2 (Amplified Trans.) it is written:

       ...."Therefore since we do hold and engage in this ministry, by the mercy of God - we do not get discouraged - spiritless and despondent with fear, or become faint with weariness and exhaustion. We have renounced disgraceful ways - secret thoughts, feelings, desires and underhandedness, methods and arts that men hide through shame; we refuse to deal craftily [to practice trickery and cunning] or to adulterate or handle dishonestly the Word of God; but we state the truth openly - clearly and candidly. And so we commend ourselves in the sight and presence of God to every man's conscience"....

      I am most certainly aware of this great and pure mercy in these days that has brought us from session to session and message to message and from sentence to sentence and from thought to thought - such mercy that flows out from the Throne of Grace to those who speak to men from out of the presence of God within the veil.
     We must be blameless before God and men if we are to both receive and minister the "given" Word of God. O for such apostolic men again as Paul. Men who will speak the creative Word into the very foundations of the church of Jesus Christ - words that are given in "commandment" out of the presence of God by men and women who will come up to Him and be there! Are you determining something in your heart: that this word for you today may be an "event" for you because it comes to you as more than a word of instruction it comes to you as a call and a challenge - as an invitation and a command to "come up unto Me"? Up from the fear of men, up from the concern for your petty reputation, up from the emphasis of the traditions of men and the kinds of things they want to hear to impress them. I pray that this is coming to you as a "personal word" - an apostolic invitation and command from God to be a minister of His uncompromised Word, both in the church of Jesus Christ, and to the world. He will thresh you. He will deal with you severely. He will bring you to a place where you recognize in your deepest innermost being the "irreverence" that many have for the "Word that is given". But O when it is spoken in the moment which it is given of God, it is life for the "dead".

	Let us pray:

     Thank you precious God for leading us this morning through this statement which you have given to restore us to the exaltation of the Word, to the holy sacrament of preaching the Word that is spoken through the mortal lips of ordinary men and women in communion with You. We realize this morning, as we have perhaps never realized before, that there shall be no restoration, no Glorious Church, no Kingdom come, no fulfilment of the Your 
eternal purpose through the Church except there first be restored to the church, the authoratative Word of God. 

Lord, do it through us whom you have called to be your spokesmen. Lift the faith of your Church. Lift its expectancy that they might come with an expectation that the word that they are hearing is not the word of men, but may it be received for what it truly is - the Word of God which performs a work, a necessary work, a work of eternal consequence in those who believe that. If you are a minister of the Word of God this morning you are called to preach and to teach. You are called to proclaim and exclaim. You are called to be a "mouthpiece" for God in this generation. You may not yet presently be functioning in it but you are called. I want to pray a blessing. I perceive that some are saying "Art, that's cute! That is a nice little flourish for the end of a seminar. It cannot hurt anything. It sounds good." O you foolish children! If I pronounce a blessing upon you you shall be blessed! For my word this morning is an authoratative word. It is not well meaning intention. It is not a hopeful guess. It is a benediction. It is a "good speaking" that performs something. It is a blessing that is real, felt, and it is honoured from Heaven! Are you prepared to receive it? Has your faith risen to believe it? Do you want it? Do you desire to be a messenger of God who will speak His words and no other? It will cost you! You will lose your "popularity" and you will offend men, but you will please God. Precious Jesus, Head over the Church, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, if I have spoken your Word this morning, by your gracious Spirit, through the mercy that is given from within the holiest place, then I ask you to honour these words which I shall now speak to this people as a creative word, a fact, an event, that which shall establish, seal and bring forth, true speakings out of their mouths to the establishing of Your holy purposes in the earth through the Church, not only for this age but for the ages to come. In your holy name Lord Jesus, I bless every single man and woman who have answered their call to be vessels of your authoratative Word this morning. I pray a "holy seal" upon their lives. I pray an impartation into their very spirit of a divine jealousy for the purity of the holy Word that is "given". I pray that they might believe despite every appearance to the contrary, even in their own weakness and ineptitude and lack of "qualifications", that the word that they will speak is God's very word. I pray that they need not be embarrassed for it nor ashamed to proclaim it, but that they can speak it boldly, fearlessly, openly that it might perform a work in those who believe. For faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Let these words seep into your spirit. Let them be formed there never to depart away. Hold fast the confession of your faith. Rise to the apostolic invitation of God and shake the earth again in Jesus' name.                                                    Amen.



****  We do not "sell" any books the Lord has given us. The Lord has instructed us to both "publish" and distribute (give) them according to His direction and in the case of "The Apostolic Church" we have placed the address of Ben Israel Fellowship below asking those who have been blessed by this "precious" work to support that ministry.

Please direct any inquiries to:
Art Katz
c/o Ben Israel Fellowship
Route 2, Box 183
Laporte, MN 56461 USA

Phone: (218) 335-2151
Fax: (218) 335-2562
E-Mail: akatz@...
http://www.benisrael.org