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The Covenant Nation Celebrate 30 Years - Session 1
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This morning I want to touch on three major points in my discourse: effective ministry in the new emerging era, the responsibility of a church, the responsibility of a pastor and leadership, and how every person can participate in the work of ministry. When we understand the nature of the work, we know what type of participation every person can offer.
We are facing complexities in ministry today, particularly in this part of the world. However, if you look back fifty years, you'll find that the cycles are the same. Kenneth Hagen discussed with Dr. Roberts how, when looking back fifty years, the same things appear—they seem new, but really nothing is new. The cycles repeat.
Back then, if you said you were in ministry, you were simply a preacher who came to church. Now, apart from everything else you do, even the world believes we're not doing enough. A pastor must be a lawyer, a businessman, a social activist, almost a campaigner. The complexities are there.
In my own experience, I realized what was happening when someone called me at 6:15 a.m. A church member called to say, "Pastor, there's a car on fire on the road. You have to do something." I asked, "You're on the road somewhere, a car is on fire, and you're calling a pastor? Why?" In her innocence, she expressed something profound: she was asking, Which institution seems to be working? Which institution seems reliable?
The pressure comes because leaders have shown capacity, and now people say, "Direct this capacity in our direction." We've reached a point where if thieves break into someone's house, they might call the pastor. But in places where working institutions exist, people know to call the fire service, not the pastor.
One person even asked me to use my influence to prevent a delayed flight. The underlying thought is that the church is an institution we can use for our own ends. There is an unusual amount of pressure for things that may not be part of the core of the ministry Christ called you to do.
You must understand: Satan knows he can damage the church's reputation, making it less effective at what it's supposed to do. If the people feel the church isn't doing what it should, they won't properly hear the message of redemption.
You may know in your heart that these aren't the essential things God has called you to do. But you must learn to give to Caesar what is Caesar's, so you can give to God what is God's. If you give to Caesar a little, Caesar will praise you. You can respond to some of these pressures while keeping the core of ministry distinct.
The world is changing, but it's simply changing into what has already been. If you look at church history, you'll see the church has involved itself in social work before. A ministers' conference at the Church of England, after all the data on social work they did, concluded: "None of these things we did added anything to the spiritual advancement of God's kingdom on Earth." However, if those things were done as secondary—giving to Caesar what is Caesar—while reserving the core of ministry as your calling, it probably would work.
In the 1980s, globally, people began to downplay the need for theological education in the name of practical ministry. Theological depth was not seen as required; a practical approach was emphasized. A generation of ministers arose who were very practical but lacked theological depth.
Here's the problem: it happens in cycles. Look at books like Christ the Healer by F.F. Bosworth or works on bodily healing and atonement. These are practical teachings on faith and healing, but there's a theological debate inside them. T.J. Masosan, for example, goes into detail about the stripes on Jesus—there were thirty-nine—breaking them down to thirty-nine classes of disease known to man.
The reason these books were so deep was because theologians who were solid—who did not believe in divine healing—presented arguments against it. Those who believed in divine healing had to respond theologically. The deepest theological book I have is a document on the work of the atonement. Inside, it says, "With the rise of you Pentecostals, we count them... the last of us is Billy Graham. We challenge you to meet us on character and integrity." They didn't believe in divine healing or speaking in tongues. But the debate was theological, not dismissive.
Today, when we just talk about tongues generally, without that theological grounding, if someone argues against you, and you're not established in the theology, you will shake. In order to deepen the church, God brings questions—and people have to answer them.
People need answers. The younger generation in every cycle asks different questions—not something exclusive to Gen Z now. Every generation does it. I was in Kenya speaking with a major leader, and he told me that West Africa had very strong theological schools. He came in 1982 and said, "Your leaders are smart. I met W.F. Kumuyi. I met Pastor Adedeji. Those people's brains were working." He contrasted this with his own region.
One man who was ninety-one years old told me: he was present when Derek Prince taught in their country in 1965. He said, "I was interpreting when Derek Prince taught. We had a prayer meeting at school, and while we were praying, we saw red horses coming in the realm of the spirit. We prayed, and those horses turned back." This was recorded in Derek Prince's book before 1965 when he went to the Horn of Africa. He pushed demonic spirits into those places.
When problems began in that country in 1982, they got up to pray. It was a repeat of what had happened before. There is nothing new happening; it's cycles.
Look at Job 32:1-7. These three men—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—ceased to answer Job because Job said, "I haven't done anything wrong. I'm a good guy. Why is this happening?" Then Elihu's wrath was kindled. The point is: there is no value in attacking the old. God doesn't work that way. The time when God told anyone to pass the button to the next generation was at the point of death. You don't see Elijah saying, "I'm too old; it's time to transfer." Elijah went up to heaven alive. Joshua took over at the point of Moses' death.
There's nothing in the Bible like, "You must retire because you're old." The young serve with the old. Nobody stops for another. The old preaches the message; the young preaches the message. There's no fight here.
Brother Copeland said something profound: "I am believing to live 120 years." He said God told him, "The longer the anointing stays in the body, the more mature it becomes. The more wisdom there is—the more the wine stays, the better the wine is. I have not been able to find anybody on Earth where I put My anointing for ninety years. The body always gives way before we get to that time. Can you help Me so I can have a person in whom the anointing was for ninety years? Then the wisdom of ninety years will start coming out."
But the younger generation—this isn't about taking over. It's about the challenges specific to your generation that you have to answer. If you don't have answers to those questions, it's not about taking over something; it's about answering the questions posed to your generation.
Look at Job 32:5. When Elihu saw there was no answer in the mouths of these three men, his wrath was kindled. Job needed a doctrinal explanation of why he got himself into that trouble. But more than that, job needed something else: a proper prophetic instruction—which means a specific course of action to solve the problem.**
For Job, the solution was to pray for his friends. That was the prophetic instruction. Once he did it, everything changed. That's what ministry is supposed to be.
Ministry is supposed to be in the context of people's actual lives. There are certain pains in people's lives; there are certain questions in their hearts. As it was said of Daniel, "he dissolved doubts" and "he interpreted dreams." People had dreams; if they listened to Daniel, they got an interpretation. That interpretation wasn't just information—it was insight into what they needed to do.
I can be preaching what I know, but that doesn't mean I'm ministering to people. If a pastor has done everything to grow the church and it's still at twenty members, and they leave this conference without answers, we didn't minister to them.
Ministry starts with intercession—taking the causes of people to God in prayer. A lady came to me after a message. She had gone through a divorce. After the message, she sent me a note: "Now I have peace. I have an explanation of what happened. I'm not asking for restoration of the marriage. I now know what happened." When I reviewed the message, there was nothing in it that directly addressed marital problems. But she received a prophetic instruction—something quickened to her heart.
Look at Exodus 18:17-20. Moses' father-in-law said to him, "This thing that you do is not good. You will wear yourself out. This thing is too heavy for you." He told Moses, "Be this people's lawyer, their representative before God, bringing their causes to God. Then teach them His ordinances and laws—show them the principles of what God wants. But it starts from their questions."
Paul asked for only one prayer from the church: that God grant him utterance. This suggests something profound: you may know things, but you don't know how to say them.
Reverend Makanka said for the first time that Paul wasn't deficient in knowledge; he was talking about utterance. You must respect this if you're in ministry. If you want to pray for any minister, the first thing you should go for is that God will give utterance.
Paul said, "We have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is of God, that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Holy Spirit." He was saying that the exact words you speak are important. Bishop Keith Butler told me something Kenneth Hagen told him before he died: "If your message is misunderstood, the honor is on you who preached it, not on the people who didn't understand it. You take responsibility for it."
You don't preach unless a word is quickened to you. You can talk from what you know, but that's knowledge. When you talk from revelation, something was quickened to you. Roy Hicks said, "No matter what topic they give you, if you don't want to embarrass yourself, even if they say preach on the second coming of Christ, preach what God is revealing to you at that particular point in time."
Paul said, "That I may have the seasonal word." There's a doctrinal word, but then there's the seasonal word—the word in season, the answer to what's happening right now. Preach from the quickened word. You shouldn't stand behind the pulpit if something wasn't quickened to you.
"Ministry is done by revelation. No one takes this honor to himself except he who is called by God." I suggest that anyone involved in ministry should pray the Ephesians 1:17-18 prayer: "That God will open the eyes of your understanding, that you might know the hope of His calling upon your life in Christ."
Pastor Jerry said something two or three years ago that is correct: "The church was deficient in principles, so God moved, and we taught principles to the point where we forgot power. God is now reawakening the consciousness of power, so Christianity is not looked at as just mental principles and principles."
Moses didn't delegate anything at first. When he broke through in ministry, he was doing everything himself. Breaking through in ministry is not about delegation; sustainance and multiplication come later through delegation. But the ministry itself has an element that must be touched. If you spend all your time on organization instead of touching heaven, you'll have organization without power.
Revelation 3:22 (The Message): "He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches." It will take waiting upon the Lord—not waiting for a church to grow or finances to come, but waiting for revelation of what to do.
Waiting on the Lord means praying purely for revelation: "God, open my eyes. Reveal to me what exactly I am to do. Show me what is coming next and how it is to be accomplished."
Moses practiced this. In Leviticus 24:12-13, when they brought a boy and wanted to make a decision, Moses said to put him in ward—a holding place—"that the mind of the Lord might be shown unto them." The Bible says, "And the Lord spoke unto Moses saying..." The power is in knowing the mind of the Lord, not in copying what someone else is doing.
You can see what somebody else is doing and copy it, but copies are never like originals. If you look at a copy, you know it's a copy, and brass is not gold. People nowadays say, "If you want to grow your church, just look at what somebody else is doing and copy it." But breakthrough ministries at the beginning didn't copy. They moved by revelation.
I was in Port Harcourt when Bishop got up and said in the spirit: "There is only one Bishop. There is only one Bishop Fran. But there are five of this person, ten of this person..." When they say Jesus, we know Jesus. When they say Paul, we know Paul. But who are you? Because your identity is not clear in the spirit. It's like you're building another supermarket. There's only one way to it: revelation.
Numbers 16:28 says, "Moses said, 'Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, for I have not done them of my own mind.'" Before he did anything, he waited on God.
Bishop said something profound: after the Nigerian government gave him a license for the university, he went to God with the papers and said, "God, for the last time I come to ask: Did You send me or did You not send me? If You didn't send me, I will tear the paper." The government may give you a license, but if God didn't send you, that's not a testimony.
Once God says, "I sent you," you are free of stress. There's a way revelation comes. Here's a practical tip: Numbers 24:13 says, "If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord to either do good or bad of my own mind." There are very good things that are not divine. Nobody will criticize you for those things, but they're not from God's mind.
Moses told him: "If it happens naturally, then you know God didn't send me. But to show you that God sent me, it will not happen naturally." If God sent you in ministry, even if you're not fully in tangent with God, He will sustain you. As your food finishes, the Lord will provide. Someone will give you enough for the week. God will encourage you.
I was down in my office one day. I said, "God, did You send me? This doesn't look like anything is working." Someone came and said, "Pastor, something happened outside. You need to come." A lady from the fastest-growing church in the city had come with her car. She said, "I heard you preach last week. This is my church. This is my offering." It was a car I had never seen before. I said, "This is small; God called me. Go back." The bush will be burning, but you will not be consumed—but only if you've heard that specific instruction.
To get this revelation, you need to dedicate yourself to what I'll call about six months of prayer every day. In practical terms, live a fasted life for six months. I don't mean fast completely; I mean keep your stomach light—skip a meal or two. Pray not for a car, not for a house, not for money, but for revelation: "God, open my eyes. Show me. Revelation, open my eyes."
Kenneth Hagen said during the healing revival: when you copy other people, you can go with that wave, but you don't know how it came. That wave will soon come back to the shore, and you'll be left on the shore. But if you jump into the water yourself, you can enjoy the ride. When the water comes back, you know what happened.
After the healing revival, a major minister came to meet him and said, "What happened? You just blossomed and started going. The rest of us are trying to find out what you did so we can do it." He said, "Everything I'm doing, I'm doing by revelation. Don't copy what I'm doing." He held discussions with Dr. Roberts, and they got the revelation exactly the same way—through tongues and interpretation. That's how they knew what to do.
There are many brilliant ideas. You can use ideas, but if you copy an idea, it's never like the original. Stay on the doing side. Use a small amount to test—ten thousand naira, not ten million—and don't borrow money. But keep doing and keep praying: "Open my eyes. Open my eyes." Because whoever is sitting at home dying can't see anything. Jesus never called lazy people. Even the tax collector was at his desk doing something, though it was wrong. Jesus calls doers.
Romans 4:1-3 (The Message): "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that became his turning point." A minister in this country told me: the first time they invited him to preach, he said he had to borrow money for that meeting. Everything was what he'd get on an honorarium. He was carrying that church, carrying it, until something happened. That something means he entered into what God was doing, not what he felt he should do for God. That can only come by staying in prayer for six months.
First Corinthians 14:26-29 talks about how the body of Christ works. "When you come together, everyone has a doctrine, a tongue, a revelation, and an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification." Paul says, "Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others judge that word." Judge means discern.
If anything be revealed—if while someone is prophesying, something is revealed to you while you're listening—that is something called a prophetic company. There's a realm where, if you're listening to people prophesy, God reveals to you what those people themselves don't know they're prophesying.
The future is for listeners because even if you're not the one speaking, you get revelation just by listening. One time at Robert's ministers' conference, he said, "I know many of you are disappointed I didn't tell you to speak. But you are the ones who will go with the blessing. We that are talking will not go with the blessing."
You that are listening will go with the blessing because as someone prophesies, another person gets ideas and moves into them. The person who prophesied it had better listen to that person, or else they'll miss what God was doing through their own words.
If you want to go far, look for cutting-edge ministries in your city. Don't look for many—two or three is enough. Sit with their message. As you're praying, God will give you revelation. If you just pray on the mountaintop alone, "Lord speak to me, Lord speak to me," you have nothing to gauge it with.
There's a ministry of the prophetic company. Paul planted, Apollos watered. You can be in a conference where Paul plants, Apollos comes and scatters what Paul planted—but God cannot give an increase to that. God is not an author of confusion but of peace. When you listen and sit, and it's your turn, you bring the microphone full because you've been listening and receiving revelation all along.
I respected a certain minister for something he said. His father died at thirty-three, his grandfather died at thirty-three, and when he was thirty-two, he asked his friend, "Shouldn't we do something about this pattern?" His friend said, "No, I'm a new creature in Christ." The next day, he reached thirty-three and died in his sleep.
Then the friend went to seek God: "What's going on? We have this teaching that we're new creatures; all things have passed away. But why did this happen?" If you cannot answer the question, leave what you're saying. You can't just repeat doctrine while people suffer. That's wickedness. It's a lack of compassion and empathy.
Once you start interceding, the burdens of people come upon you. The pain of people comes upon you. The way they're weeping, you're weeping in prayer. That's where revelation comes—not from reading books we've all read, but from carrying the weight of people's questions to God.
Father, in the name of Jesus, we thank You for Your word. By the power of Your Spirit, I ask You to establish us in this truth, expand it within our country with faithfulness and righteousness, and bring forth massive fruit in our lives, in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.
