These are days when more and more men, women and children, are searching for true identity and the meaning of life, and I believe that God has laid it upon my heart to write about
Some of this material is specific to New Zealand, some more to the north of the country than to parts of the south, but I believe that God is indicating that the same situations are arising in other countries as well.
The Church is founded upon the Lord Jesus Christ and His words. Jesus, our great God and King, is alive and will govern His Church by His words, with power and authority, through the Holy Spirit and the men He raises up, by His grace, to guide and lead her. The world has its Declarations of Independence, International Declarations of Human Rights, and so on. This is a Declaration of Dependence on God, and submission to His Theocracy. It is intended to be read as a call only to spiritual arms, and not political means, for Jesus’ coming Kingdom is not of this world,
These days are times of great and constant change and even turmoil for some. The words of the prophet Daniel implying that knowledge will increase towards "the end", are truly being fulfilled now. People find that things are changing all the time. New technologies are continually emerging, political and governmental structures being modified, and the routines of work and daily life are continuously being altered. The Lord Jesus’ words about wars, rumours of wars, famines, earthquakes, .., increasing and more, are in the process of being fulfilled as well.
Along with the increasing pressures and concerns of life, it all comes together with a certain kind of disorientation. And risk of losing our footing, from the solid foundation that the Ancient of Days laid down for the human race at the very beginning of all things—God’s general foundation of how He wants us to live, be, and worship Him.
Many people are disorientated, and even unconsciously totally bewildered. The spiritual confusion evidenced by many in these current times is simply due to the human race forgetting and losing many things that should not have been lost or forgotten. And as we shall see further down, a replacing of the reality of God and His ways, with the vain imaginings of mankind and demons. The result of which is frightening.
Now, the treasures of God’s grace and knowledge need to be fervently sought afresh. His righteousness be prized and yearned for again, until He rains it down upon us, and God’s Salvation springs up, growing strongly, in the countries where He has us living. We need to remember again that we are all only strangers and aliens passing through, we are looking for the New Jerusalem coming down from Heaven to be our home. And that we are not to adopt or absorb the ways of the people that we live amongst, but to remain faithful and useful to our great God and Sovereign.
There are already a small number of people (said to be under two percent of the population) in New Zealand, and adjoining lands, and many more around this whole earth, who are sincerely committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Who in that commitment follow a simple yet dynamic proposition, made up of the teachings that Jesus and His missionaries first taught by the anointing of the Spirit of God, now nearly twenty centuries ago.
The proposition is this, that in Jesus of Nazareth, God has powerfully and ultimately revealed Himself and His love to the human race. That all past and other (or claimed) revelations of Himself to humankind, in whatever form they may have taken, are eclipsed and overtaken, by this supreme unique manifestation of the Divine Person. And that Jesus’ commands and teachings supersede all others’.
So it is that God calls for everyone to change their thinking and utterly trust in Him — through what Jesus has done for us nearly two thousand years ago at the beginning of this epoch, by sacrificing Himself, dying on a cross just outside the city of Jerusalem in Israel.
God still reveals His will, by faith to those who become His children, through and by His Holy Spirit, and that it is our loving duty to each know God’s will, and serve Him and humanity humbly, and obediently all our remaining days here on earth. That such surrendered lives will be devoid of self serving, self seeking, having willingly surrendered self pleasing in the light of His glorious grace and knowledge of His eternal love. And so, that ego will no longer live, but Jesus by His Spirit will live within and through each person who responds to God’s call, who make themselves completely belong to Him, eager to give God pleasure in all things. So that God may be truly glorified in everything that a person’s life touches.
The essence of this manner of life was not established only two thousand years ago. For ever since He created all things, God’s prophets and people of old, both before the Flood of Noah, and after it in the days of Abraham, before Moses and after him, and now in Christ, have always shown that God will guide and lead mankind, if, we will be obedient and faithful to His revelation and instructions, both to us as a race, and as individuals. And that if we don’t, that there are consequences, even the ultimate punishment.
Such faithful people have revealed that God does not want His children to rely on personal strength, might, nor mere human thinking and authority in seeing His will come to pass, but to utterly rely upon His Spirit’s revelation, power, and the Authority that He has given His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Followers of Jesus then, seek to live their lives personally obedient to Him, careful to observe and keep His ways in the strength that comes from His Holy Spirit alone, endeavouring to keep themselves free from a sinful life, evil attitudes, and the pressures and allurement of this present world in its corrupted, fading, and perceived glories.
None of us have perfected this, but continue to hope, constantly aiming to connect and work with Jesus in the challenge of God outworking His high calling and purposes in our lives.
We are those who are committed to the proposition that God knows best, and will reveal His best, by His Holy Spirit. Whose humble duty then is to keep ourselves free of our own thinking. Keeping ourselves in Jesus, and His words in us. Being quick to repent and seek His face and forgiveness should we fall into any temptation and sin. Knowing that convicted sin, left unrepentant, will cost the individual eternal life.
From the heart we aim to pursue the knowledge of His will, personally and corporately, and the performance of it until, at His powerful return in the clouds for every eye to see, when He gathers us, physically transformed, into His presence, whether resurrected bodily to life again, or still currently alive at that time. Meanwhile, while remaining in God’s rest concerning this free gift of Salvation, God’s children are to be industrious and busy about His business, spreading the good news of His Kingdom, in all its spiritual realities and creative practical outworkings, at home, at school, at work and about town and beyond. Enriched with a special regard for the poor, and on going self-sacrificing love for fellow believers.
We hold that God in His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, has entered the world by birth through a young virgin woman called Mary. That Jesus so descended from the Jewish royal line of king David of the tribe of Judah, 
has grown to full manhood, living to perform His Heavenly Father’s desires, dying to pay the judgement price to God that each should pay for their own sins. That God has made a way through the voluntary execution of Jesus Christ, for all to be forgiven the cost and penalty price of their own sins. That those who believe in the payment that Jesus has made on their behalf, by His dying on the cross, will never have to stand accountable to God on the terrible Day of Judgement that is coming.
Jesus rising from the dead on the third day, we believe, proving that God in so bringing His Son bodily back to Life, has shown the whole human race that Jesus’ sacrifice of His body and blood on the cross, has been declared to be an acceptable sacrifice to God the Father on our behalf. Therefore that sins will only be forgiven by God through total continued trust and obedience to Jesus and His message of this great salvation. We believe that we have only this one life in which to make sure that our name is written in the Book of Life, and need live this life worthy of Christ’s calling, in total faith, that He not even need to consider removing our name form His Book of Life.
We believe then that God has decreed the whole human race to have fallen short of His fair requirements. That all are sinners and await the judgment Day of Christ, where only eternal torment and damnation will exist for those whose names are not written in The Book of Life. So we commit ourselves to the spreading of Christ’s message, to the convincing of mankind that as One has been appointed to die for all, that none need face Eternal judgment and Damnation, knowing that there is no hope for humanity outside of these very precious promises of God, this wonderful free gift of His grace and mercy in Jesus Christ.
God, having directly entered the human race through His own dear Son Jesus Christ, wants to bring people into friendship with Him and into relationship with Him as a loving Father, Jesus first cleansing them of their sins. And we believe that God wants to continue to communicate with us through out all of our days here on earth, being in fellowship with the people that He has saved from sin and judgment. That those who are still in Christ when they pass from this earth, shall not taste of death, but shall be with the Lord Jesus Christ in paradise in heaven. Waiting for the day when at the return of Jesus in the clouds above this planet, their body shall be raised from death, and they shall inherit such a body as can never again know sickness nor death nor any other problem, but who will, for ever and ever, experience eternal and blessed happiness. Sharing in the inheritance of all things, that our Heavenly Father is giving His Son Jesus.
That God’s love knows no bounds in expressing Himself to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. That in confirming the authenticity of the Heavenly message of Jesus Christ, called the gospel, He performs all kinds of miracles, healings, as well as deliverance from the power of Satan, the Devil. His followers casting demons out of people in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so, that every water baptised believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who actually lays down their life for Him and their brothers and sisters in Christ, will share in the wonderful future that Jesus will bring with Him when He returns to rule the Earth from Jerusalem. And that after Jesus has restored all things, handed everything back to His Father in heaven, and the heavens are rolled up, and the whole universe destroyed by fire, that those who trust and follow Jesus in this life now, who have ruled along with Him as part of His Government at His return, will pass through from this universe to the new earth and the new heavens that will replace it. And that those who do not follow Christ, shall have no part in the life to come, but at the judgment Seat of God, shall be thrown into the eternally burning lake of fire, to be tormented for eternity in an indestructible imperishable body. And that God shall choose to remember them no more. A punishment originally designed by God for the Devil and his rebellious angels.
To help us get through this present difficult life with its many hindrances and temptations, we believe that God has fulfilled the promise He made through His prophets of old, and through His Son while here on earth, in out pouring His Holy Spirit from Heaven to live in us and to guide and lead us into all truth. That the Holy Spirit will, as God Himself, personally guide us, and teach us all things. Making known to us, things that are yet to come.
Through the Holy Spirit, we believe all true believers are drawn into fellowship with each other and that by God’s grace this finds form in gathering together, by the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit given to believers as He chooses, to encourage and strengthen one another. And that to each follower of Christ the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one, just as He determines.
That the Holy Spirit gathers repentant water baptised believers together to remember the Lord Jesus’ sacrifice of His Life through the ceremonial taking of the bread and the wine, to be done until He physically returns in the clouds for every eye to see.
We believe that God has prepared books through the working of His Spirit. A collection of books that under God’s guidance the Church has bound together, and are known as the Holy Bible. That God inspired the collecting of those books and the recording of the things originally written. That this Bible records God’s authoritative statements to mankind, examples of right living and wrongdoing, personal experiences and the appreciation of individual people, and wholly accurate statements of things that have been and of those that are yet to come, that all may learn God’s ways and character.
But above all else that this Bible records the predictions and the evidences of the first coming of Jesus the Son of God, and the call for all to personally turn from their sin and unbelief to trust in the one and only true God through Him. And that these holy writings foretell the physical personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds above this planet with His heavenly army. That at His return ..
Jesus will put down the enemies of His people Israel, have Satan bound in the Abyss and Himself rule as the Great King over the whole planet, with His faithful resurrected and transformed followers at his side, governing whole realms at His command.
We maintain that God still calls men to His service, and so we pray and work towards the day when Jesus restores the fabric of His church amongst His people in these present times. Seeing elders and deacons caring for God’s children; missionaries, prophets, proclaimers of God’s wonderful news to mankind, people caring for believers and teachers guiding and living in this Way for others to follow Christ. All working to hasten the day of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
First let us look at what we are not to follow and be like. The world is being overrun by ‘Political Correctness’. Countries like Australia now tie the acceptance of ‘political correctness’ to their aid packages to needy countries like Fiji. This might shock some Australians if they knew. What is this political correctness?
Political Correctness means, Righteousness according to political theory, ‘correct’ here meaning the ‘right way’. It is a new ethic —an ethos— a new righteousness. The best yet, worldly intellectual attempt at a self made righteousness. It is designed by its authors to replace the righteousness taught by God and Christ’s people.
The ‘Political Correctness’ (PC) that the western world now follows, operates from the false basis that there is no God, or that He is unknowable. It then sets out to remove any law or way of doing things that claims to have been based on the knowledge of God and what He has said.
Political Correctness reasons that if laws against homosexuality, abortion, and prostitution etc... originate from a claimed knowledge of God, then such laws are illogical, because either ‘god’ does not exist, or ‘god’ is unknowable. Therefore they reason, that to base laws, and impose them on people, on the basis of what a non-existent, or unknowable, ‘god’ may or may not have said, is unfair on the people who those laws affect.
Believers in the true God are then seen as ignorant and ‘unenlightened’. People who need re-education into ‘correct’ ‘progressive’ ways of thinking. Religion is viewed as having been a part of the process of human evolution, as an example of earlier attempts of mankind to explain the nature and origin of the universe and our place in it. An attempt to resolve the existence of good and evil. And so God is relegated by PC to being an outdated concept, a prehistoric relic of man’s progress towards his own self enlightenment, and intellectual ‘emancipation’ from superstition etc.
PC is a blending of various historical political theories, and curiously, for all of its fight against faith in God, PC is itself a belief system. A new religion that puts humans, and mere human thinking, at the centre of all things, instead of God and His thoughts. A religion that ultimately has the human race worshipping itself and its own brilliance, and from there, eventually the coming Antichrist and Satan. Yet any of the good things that PC aspires to, can only actually be fulfilled in Christ. For only by the power of the message of the cross working on human lives, can humans be born again with the new genuine caring nature that PC so longs for.
Through its concept of human rights, PC tries to legislate what might be called artificial or reverse grace. ‘Rights’ to demand goodness from others are invented to replace God’s ways of offering reward to mankind for choosing to love and exercise care for people.
Not allowing for God the Creator — PC leaves a vacuum which has to have evolution or something like it fill the void. The theory of evolution is an essential element to such a warped view of reality. Even though PC can not prove the theory of evolution, to make it the Law of Evolution, it can not afford to abandon it. Why? The alternative is to be accountable to their Creator, and so have to give up sinful, unbelieving, lives. Instead of acknowledging reality, PC holds on to sin and the scientifically un-provable theory of evolution. PC’s priests are its scientists, psychologists and PhDs. Its present temples are the halls of academia.
Political correctness does not then see human life as being from God, as being divinely out-breathed, and sacred — to be protected, to be lived in a holy way for a holy God, but merely as just a combination of chance chemical reactions. So a person’s ‘value’ is merely estimated by what they might earn; helping them medically, decided by what they can put back into society, if medically assisted.
That is how it works. That’s why abortion, ‘un-offical’ institutional euthanasia in hospitals, and perverse sexual practices are promoted in state funded schools. Try to take God out of the picture, and anything the Devil wants could start to happen.
Following such ‘political correctness’ the western world more and more conducts itself in utter defiance to God’s decrees, seeking to remove every vestige of knowledge — and way of life, based upon faith in the Creator and His Son the Lord Jesus Christ.
The words of Romans chapter one have surely started to find their ultimate fulfilment,
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ..
And
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is for ever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practise them.
Sanctioning the evil behaviour of baby murderers, sexual deviants and perverts, destroyers of marriages, despisers of fathers’ and husbands’ authority, PC promotes the concepts of artificial human rights. It denies the very nature of God presenting Himself in a male role. Currently a lot of effort is made through the media to portray men as being useless and wanting to take advantage of all women. Formal marriage is frowned upon and even discouraged, the roles of husbands and fathers are to replaced by anarchy, and biblical concepts of families are destroyed.
Above all else PC women are not allowed to see themselves in their God gifted roles as helpers to their husbands, but in an equal role or better, as people who are to pursue their own career and find their own fulfilment outside the will of a husband, and the genuine welfare of a family. In Christian circles, whole books are written and circulated to try and explain away God’s teachings, manipulating the original Greek of the New Testament writings, falsely claiming that God’s ways were only for past generations and cultures, that men and women are equal in all roles, and that the cross has supposedly dissolved the differences in all gender roles, beyond basic salvation. The example of Deborah is misused form the Old Testament. There being no obedience in the marriage, the children do not learn to obey their parents by the example of their mother, to their father.
New psychological terms are invented to try and pigeonhole away the resultant bizarre behaviour of children and adults. Mind numbing suppressing drugs are freely prescribed to try and make life bearable for people, who in reality, need the touch of God’s love to heal them and straighten their lives. Even Christians turn to such drugs-’medication’ before seeking God’s help. Supposed - Christians and non-Christians alike allow themselves to use ‘recreational’ drugs. People just live for what feels good. Deprived of Godly fulfilment in family and righteous social life, they fill their lives up with replacement sensations, deriving their pleasure from evil attitudes and behaviour—in a word from, sin. Countries like New Zealand which have gone over more and more to this PC way of ‘life,’ are finding that it is not a way of ‘ life’, but more a ‘way of death’.
The equivalent of whole large towns of people are murdered through abortion every year. New Zealand has the highest of the world’s suicide rates in many sectors, and if there was not immigration of people into the country, official figures show that due to numerous Political Correctness policies, there are not enough babies being born, and more people are dying wrongly, so that with out the immigration into the country, there would actually be an annual population loss! And that’s with older people already living longer as well!
PC, through breaking down traditional authority structures, has left the way open for sinful attitudes to gain the upper hand in all dimensions of life. Young people, split by the cumulative effects of PC, from respectful relationships with sound older role models, grow up as laws unto themselves. And the sinful nature runs riot. Immorality finds no natural bounds to restrain it, and every demonic and commercial media driven power to explode it.
We must address the effect of all this on Christians in our thinking, attitudes, and resultant actions. We truly need our minds to be reformed in Christ, and only He can do it. In New Zealand many Christians have already betrayed God by accepting much of the above as being acceptable background noise for themselves, or out-rightly absorbed it into their lives as being inevitable. Well, by God’s grace and strength it shall not be so! PC and the cross of Christ can not be mixed. PC must be nailed to the cross, bow its knee to the Lordship of Jesus. And every trace of it be cleansed from your heart and mind.
Our fight is not against PC, but the Devil who is behind it. The battle ground is people’s hearts and minds. Our weapons are getting the gospel message out there, and the powerful gifts of the Holy Spirit.
And the battle is not even ours, but Christ’s. Jesus has already provided the ultimate victory through His death and resurrection. God calls us to keep our own hearts, families and fellowships clean of PC and all other sinfulness, but not to personally oppose those who promote PC. We are to bless them.
God wants us to be peaceful and law-abiding, and honour the "Emperor" (Prime Minister, President, or Governor General, etc. ..). To obey the Government, and authorities that He has ordained in the land, with the sole exception to that obedience being when any attempt is made to force us to cross God’s clear moral boundaries, go against the gospel, or God’s commands for the church and family life. And even then we are to be graceful and meek. For as it is written in the New Testament, there can be no law against love. And we must love God above all others.
By remaining true to God and His ways then, the communities of faith that God wants to foster, by their inherent nature, are to stand out starkly against this Satanic tide.
There are few so far who have been prepared to follow Christ fully and whole heatedly against this present evil maelstrom. Its much much easier to go with the flow, past the narrow way, on through the wide easy path along with the crowd— but only to to tumble at the inevitable cliff edge. Tumble to a certain destruction!
Lulled and numbed by it all, God’s children in New Zealand are yet to fully realise the evil that they have fallen for, and the renewal of the Kingdom of God that must start from deep within them. And that only from there will they see the power of God’s Holy Spirit move afresh.
Subjected to one of the most subtle Political Correctness recreations of a society that the world has ever witnessed, many of Jesus’ followers in New Zealand are still to find their feet again, and stand and affirm those attributes and values lived by God’s men and women down through the centuries. For the "ancient boundary stones" set by God for the human race, have been moved. The new thing that is happening is perverse and wicked on nearly all fronts. Promising freedom and liberty, this new order ushers in selfishness, sinfulness and moral chaos and death. As Christ’s apostle Peter wrote of such behaviour,
" For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. "
The markers for humans that the Ancient of Days set out, have been trodden underfoot as Godless men and women have taken their place in Satanic rebellion to God and His ways. Denying His very existence they seek to impose upon humankind their perverse version of humanity. Declaring good evil, and evil good, they murder babies by the thousand, destroy the roles of fathers and mothers and claim the minds of your children to be their own to form and mould in the state schools as they wish, as reflections of their own wicked moral-less self-centred materialistic Godless depravity.
Against this bleak dark backdrop, our Heavenly Father’s children are being groomed to reject all of this and stand again and shine as stars, as beacons of light amid this truly wicked people. To shine they must be full, not of this world’s wisdom, materialism, selfish ambition nor loveless disregard for their fellow man, but with the power of God’s great love out poured by the Holy Spirit.
A love that moves them to regard the plight of the poor and genuinely needy. A power that enables them to reach out with the Hand of God, and see the blind restored, the sick healed, the lame walk, the deaf hear again. And the demon possessed freed to new life in Christ.
History can show us the kind of people that God is looking for to carry out His purposes. But there are often two types of people operating at the same time, and both using God’s name. The glossy up front dazzlers, and relatively unknown people, who really do God’s will, and get the job done. For example, in the past, during a spiritually despotic time, — that period called the European Middle or Dark Ages, a myth and a mystic developed around the concept of heraldic knights given to a cause greater than themselves, sworn to use their might to protect the innocent, help the fatherless, and overall conduct themselves in a Christ like manner.
Many of these men proved themselves to be mere mercenaries hungry for wealth and power, while others were dangerously religious — consumed by a zeal not of God. These were all of high profile, and were the kind who, ran the inquisitions, or energetically embarked upon the so called crusades, ostensibly to free the ‘Holy Land’, but mostly to make themselves rich. There were a few amongst that rank, who actually did rise to the call of God, and set themselves to serve humanity on Christ’s behalf.
And yet, through all of those centuries, there were a great many others who were genuinely led of God, but in very humble unacknowledged ways, in places and roles, of no apparent importance by the standards of men, to be witnesses and sharers in the sufferings of Christ — for the saving of the human race. Of such we now hear little. We know more of such names as king Richard the Lion Heart, rulers and knights of what was called ‘Christendom’.
But the fruit of the deeds of those other, humble, often nameless, men and women outlive them still here on Earth, and resound where they are now in Glory with Christ—awaiting their reward at their resurrection from the dead amongst the real followers of Jesus.
In their love for God, and believing the promises that He had made for their eternal future, they counted their temporary earthly lives here as nothing, that others may know the countless riches of Christ’s grace and kindness to humanity. Selling themselves into slavery to reach the Muslim world, perishing amongst hostile Hindus, Chinese and other Asians, freezing with Eskimos and North American Indians, they are those of whom truly the world is not worthy. Some rotting in jails, some perishing in hostile lands, for what purpose? — Millions now owe their salvation to those humble children of God.
Historically, it is to such humble ones that we owe our living faith, and not to the exalted institutions of self glorifying, backslidden, churches, demonically engrossed in the pride of all things human. Neither then nor now.
So too today God is looking not for the glory seeker, for glossy Sunday or T.V. ministries, but for the man and woman and child who will take their place humbly at the side of Christ, to be warriors in the Spirit of God, to be true foot soldiers of His Salvation, for the taking of enemy strongholds. To the overthrowing of demonic strangleholds in people’s lives, and whole communities, districts, towns, suburbs and cities.
God is looking for those who will make themselves ready to serve Him in all honesty and total dedication. To go where ever His Spirit will bid, as good soldiers to take the rough circumstances that might await them, and in it all to bear witness to the grace of God, and the gospel of His redemption and kingdom. Knowing that their Captain Jesus has gone out before them, and is with them through all things.
To join Paul in the New Testament in ensuring that God’s grace towards them, is not without effect.
God is looking for men to be selfless, to forsake materialistic ways, becoming truly Christ centred—beyond mere lip service. To stand in the gap and let Godly important things really matter, to be finished with the trivial, foolish and frivolous in what ever form it takes its shape. To reject the feminisation that PC has put on male role and identity. To really love their wives and children, and to be the leaders and providers under Christ for their families and Christian communities. God is looking for men to where necessary, be firm, definite, to take authority and make decisions. To be men.
God is looking for women who will support and help their men folk as unto Jesus Himself, to care for their children teaching them by example, and through the Scriptures. For any so-called "career" to fall in behind this. Everyone genuinely blessing those in need. For married men so backed by their wives and families, to humbly wait in the presence of God and to rise in His power knowing His mind and purpose and then to stride forth, in His grace and strength, to meet the needs of this desperate generation.
For us to encourage the single to really seek God for His will for them, to seriously back them in serving Christ with undivided devotion and trust. And to esteem and honour those who do give themselves to Christ’s service in response to His call. By showing how highly we regard it, to present children and youth with the viable lifestyle of serving Christ and their fellow man, be it in what ever form or capacity that God calls them, as missionaries overseas or in their home country, or in what ever role He reveals by His Spirit.
With all the backsliding that has accompanied the encroachment of PC into people’s faith, New Zealand has gone from being perhaps one of the highest missionary sending countries in the world per head of population, to the country with some of the highest suicide ratings. From bringing life to others, to ultimately taking it from them. In the 1960’s one grouping of Christians in New Zealand, by themselves, supported over 500 individuals and families on the mission field. And that is only part of the picture of what God was doing through New Zealand then.
New Zealand has fallen from fighting it out in the 1950s to be top of the OECD listings with USA and Switzerland, to realistically now be part of the third world bracket. From having fewer than 100 unemployed people in total nationally, to often now, having to measure the unemployed— by the hundreds of thousands.
Even as Christians we have forgotten the true meaning of Jesus’ words when He said,
"Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all .. these things .. will be added to you."
We have traded the Kingdom of God for self rule, Christ’s way for PC. And a little bit of PC goes a long way, it leavens the whole lump. Clean out all of its yeast from your life, and insist on having the Kingdom of God in and around you through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Share Christ, spread the gospel!
Even allowing for the individual who is genuinely called to politics, New Zealand’s solution is spiritual, not political. The weapons of our warfare are spiritual, not political or other fleshly ways. The answer is NOT Christian political parties. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that will turn this nation, and the work is done person by person. God is not so much into big combine harvesters, but sickle wielding individuals and teams led by His Spirit.
God wants us fit and ready by His grace to one day meet the spiritual, practical, food, and other essential needs of multitudes of people —even in this country. The prophecies that God has brought for this nation speak of a time of shaking and even geographical upheaval (e.g. Dr. J. D. Eynon 26th. October 1952––see text of prophecy at end of booklet). We must allow ourselves to be readied by the Spirit of God to do what ever God wants for those days.
Internationally, never before have so many people lived on the face of this planet. More people live now, some say, than have ever lived in the totality of human existence, since the sixth day when God made Adam out of the dust of this planet’s earth, and Eve from Adam’s side giving her to him as a helper. The need is great, the real workers are presently few, the hour is late. Amongst God’s children there must be a renewed commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ, supporting the works of God, and His workers.
I believe that God is speaking to me that he is going to move again in New Zealand.
However that His people are not anticipating, nor ready for, Him to do so.
Many of His people have fallen back into their own self seeking ways, concerned for their own comfort more than concerned at pleasing God.
Instead of being prepared to put themselves on the line for God, they have wanted quick fixes — so called "blessings" — in the stead of the inheritance that comes to those who really seek God’s face.
There are many in this land who have taken on other spirits as Paul warns against in 2 Corinthians 11. There the apostle Paul explains that through starry so-called ‘super-apostles’ people can receive another spirit and another gospel.
"3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough."
Those people need deliverance from spiritual powers and forces related to such things as "Toronto", and Pensicola which I believe is not "the real thing". Much of the Toronto, and phenomena like certain prosperity and T.V. teachers, and so on, may I believe be viewed in this light. Those who have received false spirits from such, need to deeply repent and seek God’s forgiveness and deliverance.
Then there are others who have stepped aside from the ‘church systems’, to go into ‘desert experiences’, who are also wanting to take others with them. They sometimes teach that the church age is over and the only spiritual gift left is, ‘serving’ (chopping firewood etc. ..).
The only reason to leave ‘something’ or go ‘somewhere’, is the belief that it specifically pleases God. In other words, because for the individual, or head of the family, God has made it plain that for them, it is a part of following Jesus. Something that Jesus actively wants them to do. Otherwise people are again just living for themselves, living to find what please themselves, and not what pleases God. This can also happen by trying to have their life led by some bible principles, teachings from the Reformation, theologians, a home-school programme, or other precepts hinted at or found in the Bible, but not directly taught by Christ’s first apostles — instead of the living leading of the Holy Spirit. In this regard some believers are still trapped trying to blindly follow so-called ‘pastors’ and church systems. It is all a false security and comfort if it replaces a genuine daily relationship and obedience to God.
Some people replace the living relationship directly with Jesus, for daily spiritual readings from some booklet or other. While this may produce some fruit, it can never replace the reality of the conscious and real interaction of the Holy Spirit with our lives, our minds and hearts—And so through us, miraculously in signs and wonders, to others. Sustained revival comes to a country through personal faith and obedience, and corporate love and fellowshipping in the Spirit of Truth. It is not just something that just falls out of heaven. God does the "one off" kick start like that, our part is to provide God with long-term revival, which comes through keeping to the apostles’ teachings and example. Sitting idly around waiting for God to produce mythical revivals has never been His general will for us at all!
We need to revisit the methods of the Lord and make sure that we have a grasp of the basics. We also need to make sure that we are passing on those things that Jesus has taught us.
God has started from scratch with some people. That’s because there was no one else to disciple them into the true ways of the Lord Jesus. However that is not the normal principle that Jesus wants to work with. He longs for His message to be real inside people, and to be passed on to others by the power of His Spirit. As a Living word in living people, made alive again in the power of the Holy Spirit.
In seeing genuine Christian communities re-established, it is not possible to simply take portions of Scripture and make a ‘fellowship’ and see ‘church’ life work. The church of Jesus Christ is not a mechano set that can be pulled out of the box (bible) and put together. It can not be delivered to us from a denominational franchise, like a Mac Donald’s business ..
First, God by His Spirit, and secondly the men He has appointed to get the job done. There needs to be a renewed sense of what the anointing (choosing - appointing) of God is all about. Of how God chooses people to do certain jobs, and how He wants us to recognise when He is doing that, and fully work in with it. Doing our part, and helping others do theirs.
In essence that is what the ‘pastor system churches’ had right. What they had wrong, was that mere men could legislate these things over others, and focussed everything to a pinnacled pyramid hierarchy that does not have Jesus genuinely in the top position. Nor leaders who God does miracles through.
Yet many ‘out of system’ children of God, have lost sight of Christ’s authority, and His authority visited in certain men Who He has appointed. In rejecting false authoritarianism, the baby has been thrown out with the bath water. When Jesus appoints a man to do something, that man, walking in that calling, by God’s grace is the direct representative of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself for that purpose.
Christians who have correctly rejected false authoritarianism need to be careful to not go too far. For even when King Saul of Israel had gone completely off beam, been rejected by God as king over Israel, David was extremely careful of how he would treat Saul. In shear self-defence he could have taken Saul’s life and claimed the kingdom that God had promised, but he chose not to. Think about it, in this there is an understanding of the grace of God and his mind on so much that we are at risk of losing, if we have not already done so. We need to carefully recognise where and through whom the grace of God is operating.
However, God in His wisdom has not delegated all of the functions of the Saviour to any one individual member of the Church. Jesus never said that He would entirely delegate the building of His Church to the rest of us mere humans.
He said that He will build His church, and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
This is a powerful statement. Jesus has never left it all unreservedly in the hands of other men. " .. I will build My church .." Even in appointing apostles and prophets to be the foundation of the Body of Christ, in the ultimate sense Jesus reserves all the power and authority to Himself. That’s why He told us who are called, to go in His Name and not in our own names.
If one set of men that He appoints to work on the foundations of His Church fail Him, Christ might choose to pass over them and do a Paul of Tarsus calling to raise others up.
And if the Church falls into some shape and way of doing things that displeases God, if it will not respond to the Spirit of God, again, Jesus its Head, may well choose to finish with that old wine skin and raise up something new to replace it. It is Christ’s right, and sole prerogative. He is the living Head of His Own Church that he bought and paid for with His Own Body and Blood, and not some mere rubber stamp for human plans and ideas.
We need to learn not only individually, but how corporately, to truly hear the voice of God together as His assembled people and leaderships. And not in the form of the multitude of Sunday shows, or café style meetings, or pop-concerts, but in the power of the Holy Spirit and as ordained in Scripture. We need to learn how to have genuine Holy Spirit led meetings. That does not mean that there will be no leaders, or no speakers, but that we will recognise who God has placed, and encourage all, men and women, young and old alike, to exercise their spiritual gifts. And seek to be led by the Holy Spirit and not in the fashions of the world, or the ways and traditions (new or old) of men and denominations.
Paul clearly commands us in the New Testament to ignore anyone who tried to have gatherings of the church in any way other to what God commands (you might like to find this reference and read those chapters),
"Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached?
"If anybody thinks that he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command.
If He ignores this, he himself will be ignored."
If we lead our corporate life recognising that what Paul is writing there is a command of the Lord Jesus Christ, then we would never let ourselves be under ‘one man bands’, under women so-called elders or ‘pastors’ teachers or preachers, or any other recent aberration of God’s ways.
The writings of Christ’s apostles are clear on how we must be and behave. Let us believe God and put it all into practice. Let us not fool ourselves that God has two minds on things, or that we have the power or authority to change things to our own liking, or to make it easier for us by cowardly fitting into PC ways.
What if in this sense, you discover that by God’s grace you are part of something new that God is doing in your district or suburb?
Are you better than the people that God might be passing over?
Well of course, you are spiritually a far superior person to those ones who have got it wrong, and made themselves virtually useless to God.
That’s why you have been chosen.
You are a special person who will never get anything wrong. The history of the church has long been waiting for you, and at last you have arrived on the scene to do things the one and only true way.
And if you start to warm to this puffing up, you are to prepare yourself for total and utter failure. You will likely cause untold misery in probably every life you will come into contact with.
We are but dust taken form the ground, and all of us have inherited a fallen nature from our ancestor Adam. Of ourselves no good thing lives with in us at ALL.
Only through continual application of the cross to your life, and the help of the Spirit of God do you have any chance at all of success. Success is doing it all God’s way, to His satisfaction.
This requires a total submission to the Lord Jesus and a humble walk with your Heavenly Father led by the Spirit of God. As a consistent, and not an on again off again experience. God is looking for full on commitments and not just "temp" placements, or 111 (911) relationships with Him, or people who will only follow Him if He gives them nice things, or something neat to do. He is not looking for self made better people, only for willing and obedient ones. His Spirit working in our lives, will make us the people He wants us to be, if we co-operate with Christ.
In the kingdom of God, Jesus rules supreme, directly in the lives of those who follow Him. Now the Lord is ruling over all things, and having His way in all things, whether the people He chooses to work through, realise it or acknowledge Him at all.
However in the kingdom of God, His subjects are willing, and conscious, of what their Monarch requires them to do, and due to their obedience, understand what God is doing.
For too long their has been a deception emphasising the friendship that God wants to restore to us humans over the obedience to Him that MUST come FIRST.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command.
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.
17 This is my command: Love each other.
Here is a major building block of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus commands us to love each other. If we don’t, we are not His friend.
If we do, then "the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name."
It could not be simpler.
What does this love mean?
11 This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence
20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God
22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.
23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
It is not at all good enough in God’s sight for people to merely follow some Christian "rules", not love their brother and sister in Christ, and think that is what God is wanting. There is no faith or love in it.
A person might think that they are leading the Christian life because they … are apparently clean living, ‘good’, go to (or don’t go to) some home group/ house church/ Sunday meeting/ give money to some apparently Christian cause/church .. the list of human and demonic inventiveness in this matter —is endless.
But Jesus’ teaching is focussed around love. God is Love, Jesus died because of Love, God calls us into His Love. God wants us to want to spread the love we receive from Him to everyone.
The mere performance of ritualistic duties, the following of ideals, or any other thing, can not replace the genuine experience of God, and Who He Is.
33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
34 "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread."
35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
Christ is life, and He wants others to receive His life working through us.
Be Eager!
Paul A Norman with Michael F. To’o (Auckland N.Z., April 2004)
Graphics, Michael F. To’o (Corel Draw 9 and IMSI Inc. ‘Master Clips’). Kind hospitality, Christopher Waldvogel. Scripture Quotes, New International Version (UK) © International Bible Society
P.O. Box 1005Nelson 7015 New Zealand
http://PaulANorman.com 106121.717@compuserve.com
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Ph. Int. +64 21 78 2433 Fax. Int. +64 21 291 2433
A printable ".pdf" A5 booklet (under 500k) is available from the above web site look for: "Success–Jesus Way".
© 2004, Edited: MS Word 95, Published: Corel Ventura 8, Through: 5D to pdf
The descriptions of the sinfulness of the country, given in the following prophecy for New Zealand, brought in the early 1950’s, have now become the present reality in New Zealand. In this prophecy God asks you to stand at His side. It was spoken in the classic prophetical style and language of the Pentecostal movement of last century.
Prophetical Ministry through Dr. J D Eynon, Sunday morning, 26th. October 1952, at the Apostolic Church Convention held in Auckland. There was no earthquake that day, but God shook the building to confirm details of the prophecy. That year J. D. Eynon held the position of President of that denomination. This prophecy was issued from the Apostolic Church office on November 10th 1952.
“Stand thou by my side this morning, those of you who have been called of God and anointed by His Holy Spirit. Stand thou by the side of Him Who is Almighty, the Lord God of Hosts is His Name, and there is none greater, there is no one more powerful than He.
“For I desire that you stand this morning before the nation that you represent for My word is unto this nation, THIS NATION — unto the nation that you are residents in and citizens of. For behold thou by the natural eye, it is a land that is FAIR AND LOVELY: it is a land with EXTERNAL BLESSINGS AND PROVIDENCES AND MERCIES BESTOWED BOUNTIFULLY from the hand of an ever-loving God. For truly there is no measure that can be employed to express the expression of divine providence.
BUT LOOK THIS MORNING BY THE EYES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, and look through the revelation of your God.
“IT IS A NATION THAT IS LIKE UNTO A HOWLING WILDERNESS: for there-is DEEP DARKNESS: there are CAVERNS OF CARNALITY: there are PITS OF INIQUITY, and the life of humanity has become so polluted that although hidden by the fairness of the isles, it arises to My nostrils as that which is nauseating.
For I have planted saith the Lord your God; I have caused sunshine and rain to fall and out of the abundance of My goodness have I provided for all.
I HAVE SENT MY SERVANTS AND GIVEN TO THEM THE ANOINTED WORD OF AUTHORITY AND EXPRESSION OF REVELATION FOR THE DAYS IN WHICH YOU LIVE BUT BY UTTER AND COMPLETE REJECTION OF THAT WHICH I HAVE GIVEN AND BESTOWED BY MANY VESSELS AND DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS, THE VERY ISLE OF FAIRNESS AND BEAUTY AND PICTURESQUE EXPRESSION HAS BECOME, IN MY SIGHT AS A HOWLING WILDERNESS.
But I will yet have mercy upon it. In judgment will I still remember mercy. In my wrath will I still declare my grace, but know this of a surety this day, THAT I WILL VISIT THIS NATION WITH MY JUDGMENT AND I WILL CAUSE HER TO KNOW THAT IN DESPISING THE REVELATION OF PROVIDENCE AND THE GLORIES OF REDEMPTION SHE HAS MADE HERSELF RIPE TO RECEIVE THE EXPRESSION OF DIVINE INDIGNATION.
Nevertheless do I stand this morning at the very top of the valley and I will send my word throughout the land. I will cause My word prophetical, I will cause My word anointed, I will cause My Word creative, to run right through the valley, and some will hear, and you will hear a shaking, A SHAKING, YEA A SHAKING.
For what if I declare to you prophetically this morning THAT IN THE MANIFESTATION OF MY judgment I WILL SHAKE THIS NATION GEOGRAPHICALLY.
I will shake it because of rejection, because of the despising, because of laying aside of the anointed word and revelation of Mine eternal Headship.
But alongside that, I will remember the true principles of love and mercy and grace and I WILL SHAKE THE LIVES OF OTHERS TO SEE IN THE DARKNESS OF THE VALLEY, THE KING IN ALL HIS BEAUTY.
For it is to be a time of shaking, My people, a time of shaking. I am going to allow the manifestation of My Spirit to be so operative in the days to come THAT THERE WILL BE A SHAKING WITHIN THE HOUSE OF GOD.
“For what this morning, if the posts of the tabernacle, the temple, should move because of the glory of God?
There is a long way yet for you to ascend, for you have not yet learned the new song, neither have you been captured by the spirit of song, KNOWING HOW TO ASCEND IN THE SCALE OF TRUE RAPTURE UNTIL THE ESSENCE OF DIVINE MOVING IN THE MIDST IS CAPTURED WHEREBY YOU CAN MOVE FROM THE COMPREHENSION OF NATURAL SENSES INTO THE REALM OF DIVINELY MANIFESTED REALITIES AND THERE SEE THE MOVING OF THE POSTS OF YOUR GOD IN HIS TEMPLE.
FOR THERE MUST OF NECESSITY BE A SHAKING OF JUDGMENT THAT THERE MAY BE A FINAL UNITY OF MY PEOPLE.
For I will shake without, and I will shake within, but blessed are they who are shaken. Many things that have claimed a part of your life and have become corroded along the manner and walk of your life, must be shaken off.
There are things that demand the Blood; there are things that demand the Fire; there are things that demand the Purging, but their are things that can only be dealt with by a definite experience and manifestation of shaking and I WILL SHAKE, that certain things maybe taken from you, that I may be in the midst of you as My people, the ALL GLORIOUS LORD.
For I am the Lord your God.
There is none other beside Me, and even in the howling wilderness I discovered you, and brought you by ways that were complicated and confusing as far as you were concerned, but I brought you to Myself.
I will still bring you to myself. I will yet bring you to Myself, but the work I do this day is special, and must be speedy to bring you, and all of you, to Myself
I will shake orthodoxy from the top of the islands to the bottom and I WILL SHAKE OUT THE SALT OF THE EARTH THAT I MAY GATHER TO MYSELF. I WILL SHAKE ALL THE FELLOWSHIPS THAT HAVE ENTERED INTO THE BLESSING OF MY SPIRIT FROM TOP TO BOTTOM OF THE ISLANDS, for many things must be shaken out.
Know too that I will walk in Majesty; I will walk this morning in dominion; I will walk in absolute authority.
And I will gather unto myself all that are born of My Spirit, and I will gather those who are immersed into the mystery of My Spirit, and gather to Myself a people that will be gloriously one. For the shaking without shall become so terrifying that you will be glad to keep yourselves in the shaking within.
“O My people, this morning, this morning, this morning, because you have not hearkened to My word in years past, I am now going to shake you; because you have refused to apply the principles then operating, I will shake you.
So stand with me at the head of the valley this day, and hearken now to the voice of God. For I have in mystery allowed My voice to run through the valley, and I am going to follow that word by My Spirit and you will behold you will hear, you will see. For this word that I speak to you this morning is not a word to you as a distinctive society of people. It is not a word to you that believe unto a certain name.
THIS IS A WORD UNTO THE NATION: THIS IS A WORD UNTO ALL MY PEOPLE: THIS IS A WORD UNTO EVERY DENOMINATION. It is a word whereby because of the end and closing of the dispensation, it demands rapid haste and development.
Look thou into the valley and behold; look thou into the valley and hear; look thou into the valley and see — DARKNESS, DEATH, DEPRAVITY.
But let your hearts draw nigh unto Me; allow My Spirit to overshadow you; allow your lives to be held by my powerful hand, and you will prove that none of you shall escape the shaking, but IN SHAKING YOU I WILL HOLD YOU AS WELL IN THE SECURITY OF MY GRIP AND A GATHERING THERE WILL TRULY BE.
For the anointed word of the Lord will run and free course; for the anointed word of the Lord will go to the ends of the island[s]; the anointed word will destroy and save, will scatter and will reveal, and ultimately your eyes will behold ONE SHEPHERD, ONE FOLD, ONE SECURITY, ONE ETERNAL UNFOLDING OF PURPOSE, OF PLAN, OF MANIFESTATION, and then you will find the secret satisfaction that you crave after.
No man this morning can handle this word I have spoken, for it is not a word like unto the words you are accustomed to.
It is not a word that will bring to you the ordinary manifestation and ministries of edification and comfort BUT IT IS THE PREDICTION OF WHAT I AM AND AM GOING TO DO AND TAKE UP ALL PEOPLE, AND HOW I WILL DEAL,
saith the Lord your God."