The Apostolic and It's Relation To The Prophetic

There is a new wind of God blowing in the land! There is a new wind of the Spirit that is blowing! I believe that we have been hearing for a long time that there is a new sound coming in the music, and I believe that we are beginning to see and hear that. But God has a new sound and that sound is the wind of revival. That sound is the sound of the wind of restoration. It is the sound of God saying, "I am blowing My breath across the land."

It was interesting that the other night I was on the Internet. I pulled up the site of the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida. That is the church that is having the big revival. We began to look at how many people had been saved since that revival started. Let me tell you how the revival originated. It started out of a church that prayed and fasted. They began to cry out to God for a move of His Spirit. 90,600 people have been saved! They have had over a million and a half people visit from all over the world. What was interesting to me was not so much the numbers. There is a man that has been preaching in Pensacola named Steve Hill. I pulled up his biography and began to look at who he was. The first line says that the Christian walk of Steve Hill has been one of evangelism and the apostolic. There is an apostle down there with signs, miracles, and wonders.

God always works with His divine order. God does not go outside of His order. Now see what we call order is not always divine. Most of the time when you hear someone say, "well, everything should be done decently and in order," that is usually an excuse to shut down something that they do not understand. But you see when we begin to flow in the Holy Ghost and signs, miracles, and wonders, it always goes contrary to religion. It will always go contrary to tradition and to religious strongholds of the enemy. It will always go contrary to every kind of stronghold that the enemy has set up.

So God is imposing His order upon the church. It is not by happen-stance that we are seeing many things begin to break through in the Spirit realm. God has an agenda. God has got a plan. It is better when man cooperates with Him because then He does not have to drag us along. How many of you have had God drag you?

Tell God about the prophet that had to walk naked for three years -- that this was not done decently and in order. Tell God about the prophet that put out the back side of his robe and began to walk around and expose himself in areas that we would consider to be indecent, but God said that it was in order. You see God will always offend our senses. Do you know why He does that? It is to unsettle us because God wants a church that is not grounded in itself. He wants a church that is grounded in Him and His word. He wants a church that walks in faith. He wants a church that knows His ways above their ways and knows that He is sovereign. We need a sovereign move of God! I have seen enough of the moves of men.

Any time that you have an agenda that is different from God's, and you don't listen to God, you are not going to see God's results. The ways of man in the church are over with as far as God is concerned, and God is demanding that we begin to flow with Him. He is getting ready to absolutely offend the religious world. He is going to set the religious world on its ear by what He demonstrates with His power, with His Glory, with His Spirit, and He is going to do it His way.

What is revival? What is it that we are crying out to the Lord for? Revival means to revive something that was. Revive me. Stir me back to my First Love. Break up the fallow ground that we may have times of restoration so that You may rain on me, God. When you have a ground that has not been broken, the water will run right off of it. One of the reasons that God has not brought the move that we have expected to see is because we have not broken the ground the way it needs to be broken. We need to have the plow sunk deep into our hearts until we praise God from the depth of our being.

That is one of the reasons that the order of the Spirit right now is one of fasting. It is so we can break up our own soul. So that we can say God You have to do a work in me that has not been done yet.

God's order in this present time is restoring the apostolic back to a place of pre-eminence. Back to a place that is recognized. You see it is one thing to have it in a church and another thing to use it. What most people would see as apostolic order would call it cocky and arrogant. Because religious folks like to be stroked. Please leave me like I am and do not ever challenge me in my walk with God because I am comfortable. Listen, it is time to get unsettled and break up the fallow ground. It is time for the refreshing from the Spirit of God to come!

There is a fresh wind blowing upon the church. Acts 3:19 says, "Repent, therefore, and be converted so that your sins may be blotted out. So that times of refreshing may come from the Presence of God." Jesus said it this way in John, the sixth chapter, "This is the will of My Father Who sent Me, that all that He has given me I shall lose nothing, but raise it up in the last day." That is called restoration.

You know at one time to the church, it was a heresy to talk about pastors, teacher, and evangelists. But you see in this day and time that is acceptable. I can remember when it was not acceptable to call yourself a prophet. I remember when I met Apostle James that it was not acceptable to the religious order to call oneself an apostle. But it does not matter whether it is acceptable with man or not. It is acceptable with God. One of the things that you will see is that God is bringing the knowledge of His Glory and of His Presence. One of the things that God wants to do is build a habitation with His church and not a visitation. It is one thing to be visited and another thing for God to come in and live with you.

God wants to dwell with His people where His glory is so strong that all you have to do is walk into it and every need that you have is met by the Spirit of God. For there to be a move of God, someone has to bring heaven to earth. God will always raise up at least one individual that will begin to proclaim and declare what the will and the purpose of God is. God raised up men all through the dark ages and they began to proclaim that the just will live by faith. They began to proclaim what the purpose and will of God was. This hour God is raising up men and women of God that are proclaiming times of refreshing are coming from the Presence of the Lord!! Rend your hearts and not your garments. Allow God to do the work that He needs to do in you and it will be an everlasting work!

God will always raise up men and women with a message, and the message is always trumpeted. When that message goes throughout the land, God will declare what He is getting ready to do. Surely the Lord God will do nothing unless He reveals His secrets unto His servants, the prophets. A lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord has spoken. Who can not but prophesy?

And so when God speaks, it begins to be prophesied and declared on the earth. As it is declared, God will begin to release it. A little here - a little there. Because He is getting ready to show you His pattern for what He is getting ready to do. He is saying, "Look, I want you to cry out to Me because I want you to be hungry. Because I'm getting ready to release My Spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams, and on and on." Let me tell you something. I am excited about what Jesus is getting ready to do!

I have a stirring in me. It will not leave me alone. Because it is saying, "Get ready!" You will always see the psalmist prophesying in song what is getting ready to happen. That is why we are seeing signs, wonders, and miracles.

God is making the church to be prophetic in its perception and in its proclamation. What it is seeing and declaring. But He also wants the church to be apostolic in its action and authority. God is bringing the apostolic order to the forefront as in the book of Acts. God is raising that anointing and imposing that order upon the church. Whether the church likes it or not. God is going to have a church that will serve Him with all their heart. It will be an easier thing for them to serve God than it will be to stay in ungodliness.

There is a fear of God coming upon this land. Before this year is out you will see a fear of God hit that will absolutely rattle everybody from their teeth to their toes because God is getting ready to do a work. Every time He gets ready to do a work, He causes the reverence of His Spirit to come. He releases it by His Glory which causes everybody to have a respect for Him.

I do not care what the religious order has got to say about what God wants to do. Let me tell you something. I am not interested in what the Sanhedrin had to say to Peter or Paul, or what they have to say to us all. There is a religious order that is getting ready to get exposed. God is going to show us who said they were for the move of God were really not. He is going to show us what spirit they are truly of, and He is going to begin to move those that stand in the way. He is going to remove them from their pulpits and the sway that they have with the people. God is getting ready to move upon the hearts of the people!

There is a passage in the Bible that talks about when the apostles were in the temple. And as they were in the temple, there began to be many signs, wonders, and miracles among them. It said that after they saw these things, it drew the people to them. But it also said that the others would not dare go and associate with them. It said that God added to the church daily as those that should be saved.

Let us go to Acts, the third chapter. I want you to read this in the light of what God is doing now. "Now Peter and John went up to the temple together at the hour of prayer, the 9th hour. And a certain man, lame from his mother's womb, was carried whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which was called Beautiful to ask alms or to beg from those who entered the temple. And when He saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. And Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze upon him, and said, "Look at us!" And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, "I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the Name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene-- rise and walk!"

Now did Peter wait on this guy? No! Look what he did. He took him by the right hand and lifted him up.

The apostolic does not wait. The apostolic declares and does. The apostolic has action to it. The apostolic reaches out and gets a hold of what is needed in the Spirit realm and says, "Look, this is possible. We are going to do this." Jesus said that you are going to do all these things, and the wonders are going to follow My word. So you just go proclaim My word! Peter did this. He said, "Look. I do not have silver and gold to give you, but what I do have, I give to you. Look at me." He grabbed him by the right arm and lifted him up. Look what it says. Immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

Acts 3:8-10 says, "And with a leap, he stood upright, and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God." And all the people saw him walking and praising God; and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. Now wouldn't you call that a wonder? That is what a wonder is.

What had happened to him? Verse 11 continues, "And while he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the so-called portico of Solomon, full of amazement. But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, 'Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered up, and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him.'

From there Peter goes on to preach a very power prophetic sermon that proclaims Jesus. As a result 5,000 souls are addred to the kingdom.

But there is immediate opposition. Let us go on down to Acts 4:1. "And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple guard, and the Seduces, came upon them. Being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand."

Beginning in verse 5, we see they are put on trial and challanged with the question 'By what power, or in what name, have you done this?'

Again the Holy Spirit comes on Peter (verse 8), and he makes his defense and again proclaims Jesus.

The leaders response is seen in verse 13. "Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were marveling, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus."

We are getting ready to see a lot of people that are going to marvel when they see people that have been with Jesus. You know one of the things that seems to amaze me is the ignorance of some people that call themselves educated according to the ways of God. They will ask stupid questions. They will ask questions like, "Oh, he calls himself an apostle?" "Oh, he is self-appointed because who appointed him?" Well, I believe the Bible said that God set the apostles in the church. Just because some man did not come along and put his seal of approval on it, what difference does it make to God?

Now let me continue. Acts 4:14 says, "And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply. But when they had ordered them to go aside out of the Council, they began to confer with one another, saying, 'What shall we do with these men? For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it." They go on to forbid Peter and John to speak publicly of Jesus an more.

"But Peter and John answered and said to them, 'Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard.'" Now that is the apostolic speaking!!

I have heard it said this way. The prophetic is bold in declaring what it sees. The apostolic is fierce and says, "Look, that is what the prophet saw. I see it too. Bang, here it is. Now what are you going to do with it?"

What are you going to do with signs and wonders? I would hate to be in the shoes of all those that have opposed a move of God. When God begins to manifest signs, miracles, and wonders, and draws people from all over the world to a move that He started and they oppose it -- My God, isn't that an awful feeling?

But we cannot but speak the things that we have seen and heard. You see all of a sudden they became like Jesus. He has trained and taught them and all of a sudden they are saying things that He said. He said," I do not do anything unless I hear My Father say it." Paul is saying I do not do anything unless I see Him do it. Now they are saying that they cannot help declaring and doing that which we have seen and heard!

That is a prophetic and apostolic people in action!