Articles for the Benefit of Members and Ex-Members of the WCG

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42
WCG: Don't Trust Your Leaders
Part 5

You are called to use your mind and let the Holy Spirit guide you. WCG leaders, however, don't teach how to listen to the Holy Spirit directly - because they don't know how to hear from God themselves! You can learn to hear God's voice. Here's how.

The authority YOU have as a believer goes this far. You can heal the sick, cast out demons and perform other wonderful miracles in Jesus' name (Luke 9:1-6,10; 10:1-17), IF...

...you believe (Mark 16:17).

Believe what?

If you believe Jesus. If you believe He is alive. If you believe He talks to you. If you believe what He says.

"Oh don't be crazy!" some will respond. "I believe Jesus. I believe His words in the Bible, but I don't believe that you can perform the same miracles He did and greater!"

OK. If you don't, then you won't be used by Him in that way. But if you do, He will use you in that way. It's according to your faith.

In Faith - Raising Your Level of Expectation I explain that the sort of faith you need is not your faith, but HIS faith! He will give you that faith to trust Him, to walk with Him, to do the things He did, if you surrender everything in your life to Him.

The problem with most in the WCG is that they have not been taught these things and have not been taught how to accept His power so that He will actually work on your behalf, supernaturally! Worldwiders have not really been taught how to lay down their lives in complete surrender to Christ. That surrender has been compromised by accepting a counterfeit: one which places the church leadership on the pedestal which Jesus should have in each person's own life.

I will not elaborate on that here. I have already done so in the previous parts in this series. This is why it is critical to sever your connections with any group in which leadership is placed on an idolatrous pedestal. The WCG and its major splits are chief offenders in this regard. The basis for this is fully explained in the booklet God's Church - Whose Authority? For your copy, send £3.00 to the address at the foot of this article.

Stepping Out in Faith

The 12 disciples first stepped out in this faith of Jesus BEFORE the day of Pentecost (Lk 9:1,2) when they were baptised in the Spirit. At the time, they were not fully converted. They had not even been "church members" for three years! So, this power and this type of ministry is not just available to the seasoned Christian. It is available to any who dares.

I say "dares" because it takes some guts to step out in faith and perform wonders for God in a highly sceptical age. Even the majority of so-called believers don't believe in actively harnessing the power of God. What an irony! "Believers" who don't believe!

To be able to harness God's power to help others and deliver them from the power of the enemy you need to first learn how to hear from God. When you minister to others it's no good doing it in the flesh. By that I mean that it's no good using just your mind. You need to hear from God so you have His mind.

For example, how do you know which persons He is going to heal unless He tells you? You may be in a gathering of people in which many want healing, but not everyone is in the right place to receive His healing, so you need to hear from God about whom He will touch.

I explained in part 4 of one such incident that happened to me. Jesus spoke via a word of knowledge about whom He would heal and the person was healed there and then.

He didn't send the disciples out to pray for the sick. He gave them authority to HEAL the sick. That authority was from God. It is not conferred upon church leaders. It is conferred upon those who are open to hearing the voice of God. This is why it is so critical to develop the faith to be able to hear from God in any situation.

God will speak to you if you are open to Him. It is not strange, weird, or esoteric. It is not spooky. Once you accept the fullness of the Spirit of God into your life, it should become natural to be supernatural. The Spirit of God is not natural. It is supernatural.

Jesus, although He was human, walked in the supernatural. He heard from His Father continually and did what He saw in the spirit (Jn 5:19,20,30). Perhaps He received visions of the miracles He was to perform shortly before He brought them to pass through faith. Many times He must have received words of knowledge and words of wisdom to know what to do in various situations such as the feeding of the five thousand and walking over the water (Jn 6).

Learning to trust God in the situations of life is something that builds this living faith. You need more than just an academic faith. That is often mere mental assent to something, but not ACTIVE faith that causes miracles to occur. For example, every Christian believes that Jesus performed miracles. That faith is based on believing the authenticity of the written Word of God. Many believe that Jesus performs miracles today. But some believe that they can be the vehicles through whom God's power will flow to benefit others. That is the active faith you need. It is more than must mental assent.

Mental assent achieves nothing of substance. Living faith, ACTIVE faith produces fruit. Jesus wants to use you to produce that for Him. Notice it:

This is to My Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples (Jn 15:8, NIV).

How can you do this?

Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me..... if a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit (Jn 15:4,5 NIV).

Living faith comes from living with Jesus.

There is no easy formula for developing what is needed in this regard. There is no trick, no easy way. It's a process of laying down everything and becoming like Jesus in every way. Sacrifice is often the key, but there again that takes time and effort, endurance and faith. Humility is the foundation. Faith is built on humility. (The Missing Dimension in Christian Living covers this subject. It is available for £2.00 from the address below.)

I realise that building the confidence in Jesus to be able to walk with Him, hear from Him and be used by Him, is a process that takes time and often needs the teaching and experiences of others who have done it themselves to help you along. We have several audio tapes of others who have learned to live and walk by faith. They are available on request. Please send £2.50 per tape to cover our costs. Thank you. These tapes include:

How To Know God's Voice.
How To Fellowship With Jesus.
Listening To Him Along The Way.

You will find these messages very inspiring. If you are not familiar with the basics of Hearing From God, request the video by the same title or the article series Listening To God as mentioned at the end of part 4.

If you don't believe, you won't hear from Him. But if you raise your level of faith, He will work through you to the extent His faith dwelling in you allows Him.

Paul wrote to the Romans:

We have different gifts [Greek, graces] according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith (Rom 12:6, NIV).

Supernaturally implanted gifts are harnessed by faith. That faith comes from God thanks to Jesus via His Spirit. And you become His willing vessel, a minister of the gospel.

Perhaps you can see now how it is very wrong for a man to be given an ordinational tag "minister". It means nothing if he is not ministering. You minister as you take Jesus to others. The most effective means of reaching others is to minister with His power. When blind people receive their sight, when the deaf hear, when the lame walk, they KNOW that something supernatural has taken place. That is the most effective means of drawing them to Jesus. It is the way the first disciples witnessed for Him. And it is still the way today. There are countless ministers evangelising around the world, taking the power of Jesus into the nations and bring deliverance to the captives.

You don't need to be a "minister" to minister. All this business of being ordained by men and being under their authority is a sham. As a minister of the gospel, you are under Jesus Christ's authority. You don't need to listen to men in some church organisation or follow their lead. Once you are weaned, you can step out in faith and do the works He has called you to do, just as He commissioned His first disciples and all other disciples since (Matt 28:19-20). He has not changed.

When you step out in HIS faith, you will see remarkable things happen. You will see Him moving for you with His power. He will intervene for you and for others, especially the sick and hurting. His greatest desire is to bring new children into His family; for lost souls to find their Father, and to turn back in repentance to God through Christ.

Do you see how fickle all this "playing church" really is? You don't need to belong to any church to serve God. You don't need to belong to the WCG or any other organised body of believers to reach others with the gospel. All such claims contain a measure of deceit. Why do church leaders want you to stay in their church? To keep the coffers filled? Or to get the captives released?

Not the latter! You can achieve far more by being "out there" where people are hurting, than sitting in church hearing the same thing year-in-year-out. You need to take the Spirit in and get out. That's what Jesus instructed His first disciples to do. That's what He's telling you today, if you can hear His voice.

"Therefore GO..." Jesus said (Matt 28:19).

He wasn't meaning go to church. He was telling them and you to go out into the highways and byways and reach others wherever you can reach them to tell them about Jesus and to give them what He has to offer.

But if you don't go with Him, you will not see His power manifest. He must go with you.

Don't be like the present WCG, going the wrong way; going without Him. Ask Him in. Seek Him for His gifts. Seek Him for His power and love. Love without power is one thing. Love with power is entirely another! Far better to have the latter!

Paul said concerning supernatural gifts:

Eagerly desire the greater gifts (1 Cor 12:31).

Don't trust your leaders. They are not truly encouraging you to eagerly desire everything which Jesus wants you to have. They are eager to keep you in the church. They are eager to have you follow them in their new-found heresies. They are eager that you support them. But are they really eager for the things of God? Would they be eager to have you leave the WCG and go out to minister to others?

No. And any such men are not true to Jesus Christ. They are false "apostles".

To be continued...

Malcolm B Heap, 15 March 1998

For further understanding, request:
The video, Hearing From God, Listening To God, Holy Fire, Faith – Raising Your Level of Expectation, The Missing Dimension in Christian Living, the audio tapes, How To Know God's Voice, How To Fellowship With Jesus, and Listening To Him Along The Way, available from Midnight Ministries.