Ye are God's Building
All things are possible if we will only hold to God's unchanging hand by unshakable faith in His unchangeable Word. When true Bible Believers, the Bride of Christ, catch the revelation "Who" they are and can hold the Sword of the Spirit to the throat of the enemy by the strong hand of faith, even death cannot withstand them. Once we have the true revelation of the two spirits within the framework of the Christian church, and by God's Spirit discern and withstand the antichrist spirit, Satan will be powerless before us. With true revelation in our lives, the gates of hell cannot prevail against us, but we will prevail over them.
Satan knows that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever—He changes not. Satan knows a lot more about God than ninety percent of theologians. He knows that since God is immutable in His nature, then He is just as immutable in His Ways. Thus Satan knows assuredly that the original church at Pentecost with the power of God, (Mark 16 in action), is the True Church that Jesus claims as His own. All else is false. It has to be.
Now remember this, Christ in the True Church is a continuation of the Book of Acts. But the Book of Revelation shows how the antichrist spirit would come into the church and defile it, making it lukewarm, formal and powerless. It exposes Satan, revealing his works, the attempted destruction of God's people and the discrediting of God's Word, right down to the time he is cast into the lake of fire. He fights that. He cannot stand it. He knows that if the people get the TRUE REVELATION of the TRUE CHURCH and what She is, what she stands for and that SHE CAN DO THE GREATER WORKS, she will be an invincible army.
Yes, Satan hates revelation. But we love it. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ that will give us the authority over the Devil so we can see why all those who would add to or take from it would be cursed. It would have to be so for who can add or take away from the perfect revelation of God and overcome the enemy?
Yes, Brethren, this sermon is directed to "space cadets" around the world, whether nine or ninety-nine, those who overcome the enemy by perfect faith in God's Word, will fly faster than a thought—beyond time and space to eternity in the first Resurrection. The end-time Bride will be restored to unity in the common faith, not creed and not a union by organization. Then the sons of God and the folly of the man-made systems will be made manifest proving She is restored to oneness with the Word. God puts the roof on His building with the Bride. Without the manifestation of the Sons of God, the Body of Christ cannot be made perfect.
Paul said in Romans 8:18-19, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present life are not worthy of comparison with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us at the revelation of the Sons of God." Oh boy! Scripture says that not long afterward, "the son of perdition will also be revealed."
These are exciting times, but not for the faint of heart. Of sinners Luke said, "men's hearts would be failing for fear at the perplexity of the time at the end of the Gentile dispensation"—marked by natural catastrophe, political upheaval and the real possibility of nuclear war.
But of the New Testament Church and His "space cadets," Jesus prayed, "That they may all be one precisely as You, Father, are in Me, and I in you: that they also may be one in Us as a witness against the unbelieving world, that You've sent Me to. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them; that they may be one even as We are one" (John 17:21-22.) Oh my, One with God by the agreement of faith, one in understanding the Word of God. His Word is His thoughts expressed, our promise is to share those same thoughts, the same aspirations, the same nature as God—to be like Jesus. Didn't the Bible say, "No man has seen the Father at any time but the only begotten Son has declared Him in His life on earth." By the Marriage Union, we are now one with the Son.
To have the faith of the Lord Jesus, the glory of the Father was expressed in Christ; the Glory of God is the Logos. Jesus has passed this on to His Brethren, the elect Church. Soon all the New Testament saints will be glorified in bodies like unto their faithful Forerunner, Whom we'll meet in the air, the One Who died for us, after we have met one another.
Oh there's going to be a meeting in the air, In the sweet, sweet by and by I'm going to meet you, greet you over there In our Home beyond the sky . . .
Do you believe It? Are you going to fulfil the words of the hymn . . .
I'll fly away, Oh glory, I'll fly away Way up High, Hallelujah, by and by, I'll fly away.
But if we're part of the House Jesus has been building for God . . . and we're really going to "fly away" we'd better do our pre-flight check up. The countdown began in 1963 when the Seven Seals were revealed. Do you recall all those American spaceships which either wouldn't launch or exploded, or crashed?
In 1992 the Chinese attempted to launch a satellite for Australia: their spaceship belched orange flames and black smoke but went nowhere. I'm afraid that's going to be the story of too many would-be Christians who had no oil in their lamps. They'll make a lot of noise shouting Hallelujahs and speaking with other tongues, but when the time has come and gone, they'll realize the Door to God's Spaceship is shut and they're locked outside with the smoke and flame of the tribulation. A pity their other tongues and Hallelujah's were not mixed with faith. Oh, they all believed and they loved God, but they did not have the faith.
Fearful times we live in. Well, let's see what Paul has to offer as a text for today's sermon. Turn with me to I Corinthians 3, where God rebukes the denominational spirit which separates the brotherhood of believers, through intellectual reasoning, and ultimately deceives them into glorifying itself instead of God, which was Satan's purpose at the start. That same spirit which had people boasting, "I am of Paul," ["I am of Luther, or Wesley, the Oneness, Twoness, Assemblies of God, or the Presbyterians"] is still separating brotherhood, causing men to worship their own supposed spirituality. This is learning aside from faith, taking them farther from God than ever they were. "How can you say that, Brother?" Because in seeking to defend their supposed revelation they shut up their bowels of compassion against further revelation and instead of seeking the Absolute, they are intent on winning a debate by intellectual prowess.
In Matthew 11:25-27, Jesus said, "I never died for intellectual giants, they're the guys who crucified me. I died for those who are teachable like little children, the ones who can receive the mind of Christ by faith, not those who are so smart they think they can work It out in their head".
God is simply not known by head knowledge and learning. You'd better not try to outsmart God, and you'd better not attempt to outsmart Satan either.
Look at Gamaliel, that mighty Bible teacher in the days of His flesh. He's even mentioned in history. Yet he and his prize pupils missed the Christ they thought they knew through study. How many theologians and rabbis and godly men lived in Israel at that time? Not one of them understood Isaiah 40:1; Malachi 3:1; or Malachi 4:5-6. God revealed Himself to one man who never spent a day in school, someone we'd consider a hermit or hippy type—probably lived in a cave somewhere and ate grasshoppers for lunch. Though they knew he was a prophet, none of the churches would invite him to preach for them. When he quoted the Scriptures they could not understand: that's how much Spirit they received through intellectual learning (John 1:15-23).
These clever fellows ALL missed Him and crucified the very God they claimed to love. Acts chapter two is the Gospel, the good news, and NONE of the people or their ministers had the faith. Peter explained Moses, the Psalms and the Prophets, as Jesus had rehearsed them on the Emmaus Road, proving to Israel, "that God has made that same Jesus, Whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ." Paul with all his head knowledge, had God down just pat and was murdering the Christians to defend His honour. When he caught the revelation, he had to go away to be alone with God for three years to forget all his learning and let God replace it with faith.
Daniel and Paul both said that in the "last days," that is, AFTER the Seven Seals have been opened to unveil the mystery of the Book, men would be ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth, and turning from the revealed Word to fables, crucify unto themselves the Son of God afresh (Daniel 12:4; II Timothy 3 and 4; Hebrews 6:6; Revelation 3:20.)
"But Brother, those things only happened in the early days of the church. We have Bible schools today, our ministers and the elders are trained, we have discipleship." I beg your pardon, Bible schools never were God's way to train His ministers or His people; it was Bible school-trained ministers who crucified Him on a Roman cross long ago, and it is Bible school-trained men who are crucifying Him from the pulpit today on a cross of Roman creed and dogma. Worse still, Bible school-trained women have invaded the pulpit to crucify Him with their intellectual understanding and psychology.
Today the same spirits in so-called Christians boast they are "fundamental" believers, or "literalists." Having established their bona fides, they proceed to crucify unto themselves the Son of God afresh by their own self-righteous formulas for interpreting God's sovereign Word. Like their Old Testament fathers, they have no anointing and no authority to interpret the Scriptures. God is His own interpreter (Genesis 40:8; Amos 3:3; II Peter 1:20-21).
As much as we believe in trying to find the oldest and best manuscripts to get the best record of the Word possible, we will never get the true meaning of It by study and comparison of Scriptures, sincere as we may be. It will take a revelation from God to bring it out. That is exactly what Paul said, "Which things we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches" (I Corinthians 2:18.) The true revelation is God interpreting His own Word by vindicating what is promised.
When the Book was sealed and Christ was a Mediator, God "winked" at much Scriptural ignorance, but those days ended almost thirty years ago. Try to offer up your denominational guesswork today, and your folly is manifest to all the Bride, no matter how many theology degrees, or how many trinities you imagine in the Bible. Now if the Bride can see through your story, it ain't faith; not under the Blood. You're not part of the House Christ is building for God, Who can see right through your denominational ideas as He could see through Adam's fig leaf: you're just as naked behind your creed.
When you attend your "discipleship training class," or your "learn to be a minister in the one year certificate course," remember what Daniel and Paul prophesied for this our day. I'm not making fun of you, I know you're sincere; but without discernment by the Spirit, you're learning yourself away from God. If He doesn't pluck you like a brand from the fire, you'll end up twice dead, twofold more a child of hell than you were when you started. Can't you see THIS is the bundling of the thorns and briars ready for the burning?
Now, let's just review the last five hundred years of church history and I'll ask you some questions. Was Luther a saint of God and was his Message of justification by faith the Word of God which started a revival, shaking the Roman Catholic church? I was going to say, "to its foundation", but it has no foundation. Was, Luther's revival a mighty move of the Holy Spirit. Yes!
Thousands times thousands were baptized into the House of God in those days. Yet today, the Catholics still venerate icons and murals, the bones of saints, nails from the Cross, statues, thousands of square meters of St. Peter's robe, (available from Roman Catholic hospitals,) and other relics. How far have they departed from the faith of the Pentecostal fathers? Head knowledge, penance, and novenas didn't profit the monks, and "lonely Father McKenzie's, darning their socks in the night when there's nobody there—nobody cares." Rome rejected the Word and destroyed all those who believed It, so the faith which was in their hearts was lost when they went to the grave. Rome refused God's Word through Luther and five hundred years later they still refuse It.
But what of the Protestant denominations that formed around Luther's revelation, the Lutheran, Anglican, Congregational, Presbyterian, Moravian, Quakers and what more? They are not much better than mother Rome—organization became their icon. The system says what men can and cannot believe, taking glory from God unto itself. But a jealous God will not share His glory with another.
What about Wesley? Was he a man of God? Didn't his Message of Scriptural holiness added to Luther's Justification begin a revival that saved England from the anarchy of Europe's revolutions? Didn't It lift faith above the intellectual reasoning of the Christ-rejecting free thinkers? Yes, Wesley served God as few men dare to even think they might.
Why didn't the Protestant denominations from Luther's Revival recognize Wesley's Message? They could not keep on walking in the Light as God continued to unfold It because they were not free in the Spirit but bound by man-made traditions.
God raised up many ten thousands of saints from Wesley's Revival. Contrary to anything Wesley taught, they denominated shortly after his death. So by the end of last century we found hundreds of Wesleyan and Methodist sects, at least as many Baptist denominations, many different denominations of the Brethren, Nazarene, Pilgrim Holiness, and so-on.
Were all these Protestant groups founded on genuine moves of the Spirit—further revelation, as God progressively unveiled the faith, lost in Roman martyrdom? Yes, they sure were. Each of them took a step beyond what God had revealed through Luther and walked in the Light He was manifesting for their day.
There were some mighty revivals late last century and early this century. Was the Revival in Siberia a move of the Spirit? And the Welsh Revival? Sure! In 1906 the Spirit fell on an old Negro preacher in Azusa Street and the Pentecostal Revival, or Laodicean Church Age commenced. God restored belief in the Gifts of the Spirit, adding to Luther's Justification, and John Wesley's Sanctification. Following the Second World War, a world-wide healing revival was spearheaded by the ministry of William Branham. Today, however, the Revival is only in the heart of the Bride.
Laodicea is more commonly known as "Pentecost"—so-called because of the manifestation of the Gifts exercised by the Church after Pentecost.
The proliferation of tongues, healing, and prophecy, etc., caused men to think this must be the restoration God promised but they denominated to establish the Assemblies of God, Four Square, and United Pentecostal Church, proving this was not the promised restoration to the unity of the faith.
Were these gathered around a further move of faith not revealed to saints in the Ages of Luther or Wesley? Yes they were! What hindered the denominations of earlier dispensations that ran so well, from moving into the further Light God had revealed? Like the Lutherans in their Age, and the Methodists and Baptists, etc, in their day, the Pentecostal saints were made up principally from those who caught the Revelation for their hour and were rejected by their denominations because of It.
Who persecuted and killed the Old Testament prophets? Israel, the chosen people. Who persecuted John the Baptist and crucified Christ? Their own brethren. Who killed the saints through the ages and sought to destroy Luther? The Roman Catholic church. Who rejected Wesley? The Anglican church. Who rejected the Pentecostal move? The Baptists and Methodists. Jesus' enemies have always been those claiming to be of His own household . . . "so close".
All of these Protestant groups were founded around a genuine move of the Spirit of God. Each of them walked in the Light as He was in It, but when the Light moved, without exception, they refused to keep on walking, which was to reject the Spirit, and they died right there. This applied to every one of these great moves, they could not keep on walking, because they had denominated and were no longer led of the Spirit, but ruled by man-made organizations like mother Rome. That's why there is no history of any denomination ever having a revival. And there never will be.
And that, my dear Brothers and Sisters, is why God promised a prophet to restore "the" one and only faith. He never spoke through any organization, God doesn't deal through committees and boards of management, or cardinals in conclave. He speaks through one and only one man. That is why the denominations must reject that prophet and His Message, rejecting Christ the Word. And why God is now calling "His" people, not everyone, out of every denomination, into the unity of the faith.
Can you see how that proud denominational spirit, claiming to own the sum of spiritual wisdom, seeks to lift itself above its denominational fellows, and the Word of God? They claim their false creeds and false baptisms have greater authority than God's Word, the Bible. Yes, it is true, that Luther planted, the Baptist John Smith planted, so did Bunyan, Wycliffe, Tyndale, Huss, Knox, the Lollards, Irenaeus, Carey, Finney, Moody, Mueller, Bengel, Westcott, Smith-Wigglesworth, Branham, and men are still planting today. But God gives the increase. And the increase is only possible if the Seed is sown in the right season.
"The spoken Word is the original seed" (Luke 8:11). But could God increase His harvest by the Word of Noah today? It's the vindicated Word of God but It was for another season . . . other than a clear understanding of its antitype in Matthew 24:37-51. Could God produce a crop of Christians with Moses' Message? It is the Word but It won't work today. Could Jesus preach John the Baptist's Message? No, that was for another day. Could God regenerate a soul with Luther's Message after Wesley's Message was revealed? No! Luther's Message was for Luther's Age, then God added another line, and another precept which made Philadelphia. Could Wesley's Message produce saints in Laodicea? Most definitely not, that would be impersonating the Philadelphian part of the Body which was fulfilled. God added another Line, another Word, a greater portion of the Spirit to produce the Pentecostal saints. Ha-ha, ha-ha! What about today? Will God increase the Body by the Pentecostal Message today? Again, absolutely not, the Charismatic move is impersonating Pentecost, and it won't work. That part of the Body is fulfilled.
Man pushes stubbornly on with his learning, trying to do God a service without it being God's Will. The Seed has been sown, this is the harvest time. The end-time evangelism is not Matthew 28:19; it is Revelation 18:4. That's why the churches are not growing, they're apostate and dead, they fail to recognize their day and its Message. They try to impersonate the planting time of Luther or the Pentecostals, something they learned in the education plant which never came from the mind of Christ. The Building is God's, He is erecting It by the Word for the Age. Not by works (learning,) lest any man should boast, but faith. It is God Who gives the increase.
When Christ finishes God's House or Temple, He will finish It with the same faith with which He began: that requires the Message of a prophet.
Let's quickly review what we've been saying before we close but first we'll read our text I Corinthians 3:9-16: "For we are labourers together with God: you are God's husbandry, you are God's building. According to the grace of God bestowed on me, like a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another man is building upon it. But let every man be careful how he builds upon it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds upon the Foundation, whether it be with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw; the work of each man will become openly manifest for what it is; for the day of the Lord will disclose it, because it shall be revealed by Fire, and this shall appraise the character and worth of the work each person has done. If any man's work which has been built upon this Foundation survives this test, he will receive his reward. But if and man's work is burned up under the test of the Holy Spirit and Fire, he shall lose his reward, though he himself will be saved, but only as one who goes through the Tribulation. Don't you understand that the Christian is the Temple of God, and if you are truly born again, the Spirit of God has His permanent dwelling in you?"
Exactly what we have been teaching. God doesn't live in temples made with hands but in a Spoken Word Body—Christ and His Bride in holy union. Like any properly constructed natural building, the dwelling of God is not all Foundation, but built upon the foundation and integral with the Foundation. Now Paul expressed this thought in I Corinthians 12 where he compared the mystical Body of Christ with a natural human body, showing us we are not all arms or all noses but different parts interdependent upon the whole such that the Body was incomplete if any part were absent or defective.
When a wise master builder sets out to build a house he employs experienced tradesmen with skill and understanding of their craft. Each trade has and understands its responsibly, and is accountable to the master builder for the performance of its task. We might say they have a revelation of their trade, be it the framing, bricklaying, glazing, tiling, roofing, plumbing, electrical work, or painting. Unless the tradesmen can read the Blueprint of the Bible and have the mind of the real Master Builder, they might place the garage where the bedroom should be or set a bay window in the bathroom.
Paul laid the Foundation for God's building, the Church. It was Paul who wrote the New Testament, (not the four Gospels, which are an account of the life of Jesus Christ under the Old Testament.) The church is built upon the foundation of the revelation of Jesus Christ that God delivered through prophet Paul. But the Church is not all Foundation, nor was Paul the only builder, he was followed by many other men of God, principally the angels to each of the following six Church Ages; each had the revelation from God for their Age which baptized the saints of their Age into the Body.
If our Work is accepted It must be a life of faith in the Word God has specifically set aside for our Age. Unless we are walking in "the present Truth," the Light God is revealing today, we are impersonating the Work of a previous builder—Luther, Wesley, or the Pentecostals. How can we build a wall if it was completed in Luther's dispensation, or the bedroom, if that part of the building was fulfilled in Philadelphia?
If we stubbornly continue building according to denominational plans, our folly will be exposed in the Day of the Lord, when the Gentile dispensation closes. Our work will be burned and though we are saved we'll not graduate as "space cadets," miss the first resurrection, and go through the Great Tribulation.
"But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the Day of the Lord should overtake you by surprise like a thief. You are all the children of Light, and sons of the day; we do not belong either to the night or to darkness" (I Thessalonians 5:4-5).
Praise the Lord, the Light never goes out in God's Building. Let's work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, examining our own selves, whether we are God's Building. And don't forget, when you are sure you have caught the Light from this sermon, e-mail, fax, or post it on to someone you know would be God's "space cadet."
Most importantly, live the Life so the Light can shine out through God's Building and don't neglect to attend a church where the pastor is preaching the full Gospel. bb920213.htm
. . . /Back to Index to Sermons
e-mail to: ags@