Everyone’s Busy With Their Own Agenda

16th August 2001

I am writing this in mid-August, as dated. Yesterday, I took some time to have a look at some magazines that had come in from other ministries. But as I did so, I felt down. I didn’t know why. I thought it might just ‘be me’.

After ten minutes I began to feel even more ‘edgy’. I was taking a look at Proclamation, the magazine put out by Derek Prince Ministries (DPM). It seems to be targeted mainly at young people.

But as I sat there, I felt less and less in the mood to read what lay before me. I felt an irritation, an annoyance, even displeasure. At first, I didn’t know what I was sensing, or why. Then, it came to me: I was sensing in the Spirit, the displeasure of God at what lay before me.

Readers who know what God has given us to pass on to DPM are aware that they have rejected our input. (This is recounted in AA 5-3 under Paedophiles In The Church! That article is also included in Sunday Versus Sabbath – The Final World Crisis.)

Shortly after sending Derek Prince Ministries some of our literature on a couple of occasions, they instigated a policy of refusal to even accept literature and input from outside sources. They established a cast iron policy of returning it to the sender. I asked them how they would hear from God through prophets with that approach, but I suppose that letter also got binned.

On one occasion when I was writing another letter to Derek Prince hopeful of objective consideration, Jesus spoke to me with these words: I am not found in the institutions of men.

I continued writing the letter, and the number of words in it indicated beforehand that I would not receive a positive response.

At the time, I could see that DPM was institutionalising, but it has moved on much further since. I notice that they have taken on large premises in Baldock, Hertfordshire, to provide the needed office space, and their ministry is expanding by leaps and bounds, which will make many people think it is growing with the blessing of God. But appearances can be deceptive.

I remember another time the Spirit of God spoke to me when I was writing God’s Church – Whose Authority? He said that as church organisations grow, so do the satanic elements that infiltrate them. I have never forgotten that statement.

As I read Proclamation, I saw some astonishing comments by the office manager. They are very revealing. He wrote: “Over the last four years, I have become increasingly convinced of two things: Firstly, through his books, tapes and videos, Derek has provided us with an incredible resource of clear, biblical and powerful teaching. Secondly, because of the tremendous changes taking place in our society, people need more help and support, in order to extract the maximum benefit from teaching such as Derek’s.”

That’s all very true, but something is dreadfully wrong also. Do you know what it is?

Look to Jesus, Not to the man!

The emphasis is on the man. It’s not on what Jesus has done, on what Jesus has provided, but on what Derek has done, on what he has provided. I have a high regard for Derek Prince. His teaching is very good as far as it goes. But it needs to go further into accepting the entire faith once delivered to the saints.

I am not saying that his ministry is worse than any others. In fact, if you want to compare his output with that of other ministries, it is far and away better than multitudes of others. But that’s not the point. Comparisons between one person and another, or one ministry and another are unhelpful and can even be divisive (1 Cor 1).

For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise (2 Cor 10:12).

Do you know what Paul was getting at? He was inferring that any human appraisal in matters to do with the promotion of heavenly values and teachings are futile and worthless. The ONLY ONE with whom we should compare or look up to is Jesus.

The Only One who can commend any teaching is Jesus! And do you know how He does it? Through supernatural means: signs and wonders, dreams, visions, revelations, etc. Paul could ‘boast’ of plenty of those (2 Cor 12:1-7,11-12), but he didn’t do so to elevate himself, because he knew himself to be nothing by comparison with Christ!

And so, God has given us many dreams and visions, prophetic words and miraculous signs – with more to follow soon, by raising the dead – that this work is not a work of Malcolm and Helena Heap, but of the living Jesus, who is behind us in what we write, where we go and to whom we take these things. It’s not a boast when we say that we act as prophets of the Almighty. It’s within the limits of the sphere of God’s appointment. Paul said:

We, however, will not boast beyond measure, but within the limits of the sphere which God has appointed us (2 Cor 10:13).

I hope you can understand that what I have written is not to elevate us, but to elevate Jesus, His teachings, and to help the Church mature. I don’t want people looking to Helena or me.

When the now famous early 20th century evangelist Smith Wigglesworth heard in his old age that people would not know what to do when he went, he wept. He even considered that his whole life had been wasted if he had not got across to people the fact that he was nothing and that Jesus was everything. If they did not look to Jesus at the end of his teaching them, he felt he had utterly failed!

To continue with what Mark Buchanan at DPM wrote. He stated that they intend to hold “seminars based on Derek’s teaching.”

There is a very subtle transition that has taken place. The man who founded the ministry has taken Jesus’ place! This is blasphemous. Of course, it’s not intentional. They don’t deliberately intend to blaspheme or to put themselves in place of Christ before the people. But it occurs. And it happens all over the place in churches and ministries which have become well established. People lose sight of Jesus. He takes a secondary place behind the man who has inadvertently usurped His position in the Church. For DPM it began when they shut the door on the prophet(s) God sent them from outside.

Don’t Ignore Jesus’ Prophets

Many ministries and believers forget that Jesus HAS (continuous sense) placed apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in the Church for its edification and maturing. They are there until the body of Christ on earth reaches maturity (Eph 4:11-13). And it has not attained that yet.

If a ministry shuts the door on prophets, they shut it on Jesus who sends them. We have experienced this so often, it’s most unusual when we find that someone listens to us or welcomes our input.

Just in case anyone might get the wrong impression by our claim to prophetic status, let me repeat: we are nothing! Don’t look to us! Look to the words we bring. See and hear Jesus in those, but don’t see and hear us. Look past the packaging to the package. I hope you know what I mean.

Let not anyone look up to us as if we were some humans above the level of others. We are not. Of and by ourselves, we are no better than any one of you reading this. It’s the FUNCTION that we perform that is different, and because it is a prophetic function in the Church, that function (or office) is to be respected and heeded. If you heed a true prophet’s words, you receive the One who moves him, and you receive the benefit of what he brings from God for you – the prophet’s reward (Matt 10:41).

Unfortunately, DPM, like so many other ministries, did not. They shut the door on Jesus through the input He gave us for them. And they have begun to lose their way, as a result.

They are by no means the only ministry who have done this. I’ll list a few others, just for the record. (They are 5 of over 100 we contacted.)

Morris Cerullo World Evangelism (MCWE). Between 1992 and 1994 we had contact with Morris Cerrullo’s ministry, which has a huge worldwide outreach of multiple millions. We attended some of their meetings and worked with them for a while behind the scenes.... until we came up against a false minister promoting himself within their ranks. (And there are a number of them there!) We warned Morris Cerullo in writing of this debacle, and that if they didn’t deal with the false minister problem within their ranks that they would meet their demise. That is now occurring.

Bob Gordon and Proclaimers International. This capable and erudite speaker trained many Christian leaders, preparing people to lead and minister. In the 1990s I presented him with some truths of which he was not aware, namely that of the Sabbath and holy days which are part of the faith once delivered (Jude 3,4). But he didn’t want to know. I sent material to him on several occasions, until one day my wife received an irate phone call from his right hand man. He told her in no uncertain terms that he wanted these mailings ceased! We ceased, at their request, but soon afterwards so did Bob Gordon. He died.

Garner Ted Armstrong. He was a prominent radio- and tele-evangelist in the USA from about 1965 to the 1990’s. But, like his father Herbert W Armstrong, who founded the World Tomorrow programme and reached millions, he got too big for his boots. He never accepted the Holy Spirit into his life. In fact, he and his father spoke against the baptism in the Spirit and pentecostal gifts. They ascribed them to the devil! But these men were of the devil in that assertion.

I wrote a 9 page letter to him on 28th February 1994, telling him of his need to imbibe the Holy Spirit and to accept believers of other Christian persuasions (he was a cultic exclusivist) and confronting him about his comments disclaiming that some other tele-evangelists have heard directly from God. He hadn’t, so he assumed they could not have heard from God, either.

He dismissed my input. (It is customary for such high and mighty individuals from that background to completely ignore negative input. They would reject it as ‘critical’.)

Some time later, he descended into gross sexual sin and was publicly exposed (in every sense of the word) and humiliated. He fell from his exalted position.

You will know the scripture which says that God does nothing before He reveals His intentions to His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7). When God moves a prophet to go to someone with a specific message, you can bet something’s afoot! Judgement follows if those words are not heeded.

The number of words God had me write in that letter to him were 5497, which is 239 x 23. In biblical numerics, 23 is frequently used to denote hypocrisy. There is much hypocrisy among those who lead in churches.

(Because the content of that letter may help others, I have reproduced it on page 10.)

Reinhard Bonnke. Reinhard is probably highest on my list of evangelists. He’s a fine servant of God in every sense. He’s a wonderful man in many ways, totally different from the previous individual. But remember, comparisons can be unhelpful, because we are not to compare ourselves with one another, rather with Christ.

When Jesus has things on His agenda and we are ignoring those things, He raises up prophets to try to wake up others to what He wants them to take notice of.

I have had several dreams about Reinhard, to do with his work, and ours in relation to his. I have printed them in our newsletters, as well as sent them to his ministry base. But whether they reach him I don’t know, because he’s such a big wheel. And big wheels have a momentum that is hard to slow down. I have not had any feedback from him.

More than 50 years ago, God prophesied via a lady in Germany that Reinhard (he was a very young boy at the time) would be the servant God would use to bring millions to Christ in Africa. She saw a vision of a blood-washed Africa, and a little boy who would be God’s instrument for that purpose. Then she pointed to Reinhard and said that he was that boy in her vision!

No one should take anything away from the credit that automatically goes to Reinhard for his 30 years of unstinting labour and sacrifice to achieve that goal. But, it doesn’t mean that, at this juncture now, he has all that Jesus wants him to have.

The anomaly is that had he had what is now being made more widely available to the whole Church, he would not have been so widely acceptable to all churches, nor would he have been able to achieve what has been accomplished over the past three decades.

That is not to put a damper on the ‘new’ truths being presented now. It is just a fact of life that many people don’t want them. To be more precise, about half the Church doesn’t want them. But then, half of the virgins didn’t want what Jesus wanted them to have, either (Matt 25). That parable is a warning to the Church now!

The Midnight Cry goes out. The prophets who have been appointed for this task are doing their job, but who’s going to listen? I am confident that Reinhard will. But will most who read these words?

Kenneth Hagin. Like Reinhard, millions of believers know of Kenneth Hagin Sr. Jesus began a healing ministry through him from a young age. His ministry from Tulsa, Oklahoma also majored on the power of faith, with resultant gifts of the Spirit, miracles, healings, visions and dreams.

His teaching has spawned a radical movement that has been dubbed the Faith Move- ment, or more derogatorily as the Faith Cult or the Name-It-And-Claim-It People. While there is much value in his teaching in helping ritualists and legalists to move into a new sphere of faith, it is not complete, and it contains some serious errors.

A few years ago God gave me a clear dream about Kenneth Hagin. I wrote to him about it, and I give him credit for replying! I explained the dream, but when I told him what it meant, that Jesus was pointing out that some of his teaching was in need of revision because of the error it contained, he didn’t want to know. That was where the correspondence ended.

The Church Rejects The Message

On 7th August Helena was given this dream: She saw a person packing the toilet with thick steaks of meat and fish.

This is allegoric of how the Church cares little for the truth and for the real meat of the Word. Instead of living by the meat of God’s Word, the Church has despised it and degraded it. It has treated it cheaply. This response is reflected by most we have tried to reach. Prophets are seldom received, especially in their home country.

As we met together for worship on 28th July, we received the following prophetic words.

Many people come before Me, says the Lord, and they pray. But they have their own agenda. They have not My agenda, says the Lord. And they are seeking the things of themselves; they are seeking the things of the flesh; they are seeking to glorify themselves, or to establish what they have started. But I have not blessed their agenda, says the Lord, for I am here to bless what I have started, not to bless what man has begun.

That’s a pretty shocking corrective word from God. We also received these words on 4th August:

There is little time, and the darkness comes over this world... the time is short. [God] will do a short work on the earth and cut it short in righteousness.

Too many are waiting for God while He is waiting for them. But He will not wait for long. He has His agenda, and what He has called us to promote should be accepted by the Church. But because many will not, He will cut His Work short in righteousness (Rom 9:28).

Malcolm B Heap