[Course 11 Index] [Prophetic-School Index] [Mini-Series Index] [Next Lesson]


-- © GodSpeak International 2000 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Bret Wade bretwade@theprophets.org
http://www.bretwade.com
TRANSCRIBED BY: Lucy Deliganis
EDITORS:Teresa Seputis, Lucy Deliganis

The Apostolic and It's Relation To The Prophetic

By Bret Wade

Lesson 1
Restoring An Apostolic & Prophetic Church

There is a new wind of the Spirit blowing! Amen? The wind of the Spirit is blowing all over the land. It is good to see what God is doing, but we need to be aware of what God IS doing. God is doing some things and He is reorganizing that which is in the church. Scripture says that if judgment begins at the house of God. When judgment comes, it does not come to judge people -- it comes to judge sin! So when God begins to judge sin, He begins to work in our life. He begins to impose His order and His righteousness in areas that previous to that they were not in line with that righteousness. They were not in that order. Maybe they were all messed up like the way the world was when the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep in Genesis. Everything was there for the world to be operating in order, but the Bible said that it was void. It was without order. It was disorganized. God began to hover over it and began to organize it. That is what God is doing to His church right now. He is blowing a fresh wind upon His church.

God is in the midst of restoring. God is in the business of bringing things back to the way they need to be. God is bringing everything back into an apostolic prophetic order. This is what I want to teach on in this series.

God spoke to me just recently and said some things. I want to share with you some of those things that God is doing. There is an objective that God has. Acts 3 says, "Repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the Presence of the Lord." That word refreshing in many different versions also means times of restoration may come from the Presence of the Lord. If you are being restored, it does not necessarily mean that you have walked in it before. Because it may have been stolen from you over such a period of time that you never had the opportunity to walk in it. Some of us have had areas of our health stolen from us long before we came of age with sicknesses that were common to our family. It has still been stolen from us. God will still bring us to the place that we can walk in the fullness of the promise. God is bringing restoration -- times of refreshing to the Body of Christ.

In John 6, He said, "This is the will of the Father Who sent me." This is Jesus speaking. "That of all that He has given Me I shall lose nothing, but shall raise it up at the last day." Jesus did not lose anything. Now according to the world, they look at the church and think it is destitute of any power of God and that is true as long as the church decides to walk in the ways of man. The ways of man never produce God's results. Never! When man walks in the ways of God, man will see God's results. So what we want to see is God's results!! It is time that we begin to put our faith out there and begin to realize that Jesus said, "He has lost nothing, but in the last days, He will raise it up."

Now it is interesting when one begins to talk about the apostolic and prophetic. I was talking to a friend of mine that I have not seen in about l4 years, but I have talked to him a couple of times on the phone. He lives in California. He went to a lot of the big name ministries and graduated from Rhema. You can mention prophet McDaniel or Apostle James and all of a sudden you can hear the phone on the other end trembling. But when you say "hearing from God" he can understand that. When you start talking apostle and prophets all of a sudden this thing starts rising up in people that says this is heresy -- what are you talking about? No, it is not heresy. It is something that Jesus Christ never lost, but man lost sight of it. But because man has lost sight of it and it sounds odd or different, we think well we cannot do that.

You know the first time I heard someone talk about Psalmists, I thought that sounds really odd. But do you know that I have come to realize that God has never lost anything. It is me or man that has lost it. Man just said we do not need this anymore and we will do it our way. But you know, God is through with man having his way. God is now imposing His order. That means He is bringing it whether anyone likes it or not.

God is imposing His order on the church. Habakkuk 2:14 says, "The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." It is going to happen! The knowledge of the glory of the Lord is going to cover the earth. That means that the Body of Christ all over the face of the earth, as the waters cover the sea, shall have knowledge of how to flow in the power of the living God!!

Proverbs 3:5,6 says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path." It is time to trust God. It is time to walk in the ways of God. It is time to not lean on our own understanding any longer. You see when you lean unto your own understanding, you are off balance. When you are off balance, you fall over real easily. How many of you have noticed there have been a lot of people in the Body of Christ falling over lately? You know why? It is because they are not trusting in the Lord. They are trusting in what they know of the Lord, instead of having a relationship with God. You see God wants relationship, not religion.

Looks look at God's history over the past few years. God is blowing a fresh wind on the church and that fresh wind is causign some things to change. You can expect to see it. 1997 was a turnaround year where all things are different. In reference to the year 1998, the number 8 means new beginnings. I believe if I have this understanding correctly, about the seventh or eighth year of a crop, they take and drop the plow real deep and dig. They begin to plow everything over and begin to plow deeper than before. They take that soil that has been down under the ground and turn it up to the top. This these years are the years where there is a fresh beginning. There is fresh soil on the top. God is plowing deep right now and in 1998 we saw believers begin to know the church as they have not known it in the past.

Let me tell you what God spoke to me. He said "I am making the church to be prophetic in its perception and proclamation, but apostolic in its action and authority." I asked God to explain. He said "I want the church to be prophetic in its insight -- that it sees with vision and that it knows the mind of the Spirit." Then the Lord directed me to Proverbs 29:18. "Where there is no revelation, the people will cast off their restraints." That is the way the New King James says it. The King James says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Another way of saying it, is where there is no prophetic revelation, the people will cast off their restraints of being confined in the ways of God and will walk in the ways of their flesh. That is perishing. Because the end result of that is death.

Deuteronomy 29:29 says, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and our children forever that we may do all the words of the law." So God is interested in us seeing with a prophetic vision and prophetic insight, knowing what God wants done. Perception means to know, to see, to understand. God wants the church to be prophetic in that area.

God wants the church to be prophetic in its proclamation. Amos 3:7 says, "Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secrets to His servants, the prophets. A lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord has spoken, who can but prophesy?" So you see in two areas there, one is perceiving, knowing, seeing, and the other is speaking the things of God. God wants His church to be that way in its understanding and its proclamation. 1997 was a year that was strong in proclamation. Prophetic proclamation that says this is what God said, this is what it is going to be, and watch it because it is going to happen! We are seeing an increase in that prophetic proclamation now.

God says He wants the church to be apostolic in action. You say what is apostolic? Apostolic is an anointing that rests upon a church that has been touched by an apostle. That is one of the reasons God is restoring the apostolic ministry back to a place of prominence so that things will come into order. Why? Because you cannot have a right foundation without apostles and prophets. I am sorry to say that a lot of churches have faulty foundations because they are not based on apostolic prophetic ministry. They are based on the scripture and that is good, but they are still lacking that anointing -- that input and so they will go without the added dimension that we need for the power of God.

Because when you have an apostolic and prophetic ministry together, there is one thing that it always produces and that is signs, miracles, and wonders. God said that in the latter days, He is going to reveal and give revelation to my prophets and apostles that I released from the foundation of the world. But yet it has not been given except to the apostles and prophets.

Acts 17:6 says there is a little bit of an uproar in a city because the apostolic came to that city and as they walk in the city the first thing they begin to do is to turn it upside down. The first thing they began to do is to tell the people to quit walking around with these false gods. You need to walk with a God that is a living God. So what they began to do is to teach in the synagogues and all these heathen and pagans and Jews went and said those men that have turned the world upside down have now come here! Apostolic ministry will absolutely turn your world upside down! If your world is upside down, thank God, because something is going on!!! Hallelujah! It is fun when you know what God is doing!!! But if you do not know what God is doing, you are going to walk around feeling ignorant and out of place most of the time.

2 Corinthians 12:12 says, "Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, signs, wonders, and mighty deeds." Apostolic ministry will bring signs, wonders, and mighty deeds!

Apostolic and prophetic ministry will look into your life and see the potential that God placed there, and say "Come on! You can do it!" Sometimes that may get a little uncomfortable and it may come in the form of a rebuke, encouraging people to walk down that narrow path of the Lord.

God wants in this area of time, especially when the prophetic ministry is being brought back to the forefront, for every ministry to be prophetic. He wants evangelism to be prophetic. He wants there to be prophetic pastoral ministry and the teacher to be a prophetic teacher, and you can keep going with that. He even wants dance to be prophetic dance. Therefore, you can get right down to the place of saying that you need to be a prophetic people.

In the same manner, God wants every minister to be apostolic in anointing. I am not talking about calling. There is a difference. Everyone is not called to be an apostle. But there needs to be a dimension of the apostolic anointing upon our life that when we get in front of somebody to set them free -- that it turns their world upside down and sets them right where they are supposed to be.

You know, the funny thing is apostolic ministry only turns somebody's world upside down if it was not right to begin with. But see if we are right and everything is okay with my soul, and I have my heart open to God, I should not fear what the apostolic brings. I should be welcoming the apostolic anointing to come and allow me to challenge the gates of hell that prevail against the church. One of the first thing the apostolic does is challenges the status quo of things.

You see the first thing that happened when the early apostles came on the scene is to stir up demons! So if your world is being turned upside down, you might have a little demon that you might be stroking and calling it your problem. It may not be your problem. It might be your demon.

So God is imposing His order on His church. Then what is that order of God? It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. That is the kingdom of God. You see righteousness when it comes along becomes a standard for life. People will say, "What is wrong with you?" God wants righteousness in your life. He wants joy in your life, and He wants peace in your life. The reason that He wants this in your life is so that you can be more like Jesus every day.

You see the prophetic and apostolic is to do one thing. It is to transform you day by day so that you are shaped more into Jesus' likeness. Amen!! I was created in His likeness and image, but you see somewhere along the line, things were fouled up. God is not so much interested in the fouling up because He has fixed that. All He wants from us is to hear us say, "Yes, Lord! Whatever You want to do in my life, I am going with You!" I do not care what people call a move of God. They may call it a laughing revival. Hey, I do not care! I have seen some people's faces in church, and they need a laughing revival! Some people are so serious that if their face moved, it would crack.

It is a fathering mentality versus factory. God wants a fathering church. God wants a church that is full of fathers that have relationship with their children. You see religion wants factory. Knock them out, get them all educated, get them ordained. Just go preach the gospel. They do not have any relationship or any mentoring. They do not have any anointing being passed on. They have a piece of paper. That is what is wrong with a lot of preachers. They have a piece of paper.

You see it is in the relationship that makes the difference. The anointing is passed on from individual to individual. Even if it is from God to man, it is still from individual to individual. It is not from a textbook. It is not from the ways of man or organized religion. It is from the power of the Living God - Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. God wants to impose heaven upon earth. He wants to bring new Jerusalem to earth but He has got to get some of man's ways out of the way. Trust in the Lord!!

I have been telling people for years that the Holy Spirit is not a gentleman. Some person came up and said He was a gentleman, but talk to Saul of Tarsus that was knocked down in the noon day. Was that a gentleman that knocked him down? No! Was it a gentleman that took the prophet Samuel who turned to King Saul and said, "This day is the kingdom torn from your hands." Is it a gentleman that will come along and not make war on the kingdom of hell, because let me tell you something -- God is making war on hell. If you are not ready, you better get ready, because war has been declared on hell! The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord Christ! Hallelujah! It is not a preacher revival. It is not a movement of preachers. It is people! Officers just call the shots. It is the soldiers in the trenches that win the war.

No one is exempt from fighting hell and darkness. No one is exempt from the kingdom of darkness. No one is exempt from fighting spirits of rejection, depression, bitterness, jealousy, strife and envy. No one is exempt from lust and pride. It is what we do when we are fighting that makes all the difference.

Prophets usher in the apostolic. Malachi 4:5,6 says this, "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming great and awesome day of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse." That is one of the reasons why sexual perversion has come to an increase in this nation. Because God had it on His agenda to reinstate apostolic ministry which is a father to the church. But if you pervert the women to think their men, you have no fathers.

God is simply saying that He is going to release an Elijah spirit in the earth. That Elijah spirit will usher in the coming of the Lord. That is what Elijah did with Jezreel. He ran before the king's chariot and prepared a way for him. The Elijah anointing ushers in the right government. Elijah said Lord, turn their hearts to You, and turn Your hearts towards them.

The prophets usher in the fathers. That is what the prophetic anointing does. It reinstates the right government. Apostolic ministry is the government of the church coming from the highest level down.

The prophetic always preaches faith in God. Why? The prophets will proclaim what they see. The apostles say let me put some authority and action to this and let me bring God's will in heaven to earth. It is time for the Body of Christ to get the same attitude. Not to care what the devil says, but to be here to destroy the devil. Here is an example from the Bible:

"When they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Eleshra(sp?), Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith. And saying, 'we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.' So when they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended to the Lord in Whom they believed."
The apostolic is going to set a right government in the spirit realm that will cause the kingdom of darkness to shutter. That is why satan's kingdom tries to stop it before it can be started. But this will be an unstopable move of God. The apostolic supplies an empowerment that keeps the church moving forward and advancing God's kingdom. God's people will prevail because He is empowering them. God's plan will prevail and His will shall be done. And right now He is setting the apostolic in place to accomplish this.


-- © GodSpeak International 2000 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

[Course 11 Index] [Prophetic-School Index] [Mini-Series Index ] [Next Lesson]