Apostolic Ministry in the Future

Praise the Lord. It's so good to be with all of you today. I'm honored to be a part of this seminar, General Conference 2021, and I'm thankful for all of you who have tuned in and connected in with this session here today. Our subject today is apostolic ministry in the future. So I want to go to the Word of the Lord this morning, to Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 through 12 — a very familiar portion of Scripture that we could probably quote from memory, but we'll read it together. And it says: "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

Before we enter deep into this lesson for the next few moments, I would like, wherever you're at, if we could just pray together and ask that the Word of the Lord would come into our hearts and give us understanding and give us direction while we receive His Word. Lord Jesus, we thank You, Lord, for this day. I thank You, Lord, for everyone that is connected this morning. I pray right now that You would open up our hearts and our minds to receive Your Word. I pray that You would give us understanding and revelation. In Jesus' name we thank You, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

God, I believe, has been in the process of preparing the church for the greatest outpouring of the Holy Ghost and the demonstration of His Spirit that we have ever seen. I'm thankful for what we have seen around the world; I'm thankful for the many reports that we get on a daily basis of revival that is happening in North America and around the world. But I believe that God is in the process of preparing us for an even greater demonstration and greater outpouring of His Spirit. There's a move of the Spirit that has been calling us, I believe, back to the original plan that made the church of Acts such a dynamic and a culture-changing church. Now, what do we talk about when I talk about that original plan? We'll go back into that in just a moment, using Ephesians chapter 4. I believe that God is drawing us, as a church body, to that original plan that they followed in the book of Acts.

However, we have got to first admit that for really the last few hundred years the church as a whole has not been fully operational. When I speak of the church, I'm not speaking of the United Pentecostal Church, but the church body as a whole; the church around the world, I don't believe, has been fully operational over these last few hundred years. We have leaders, we have ministers, we have pastors that work many hours doing church — they do a great job of doing church. We have saints that love God, that are willing to testify of the goodness of God; they're willing to testify how Jesus has changed their lives. But they are not seeing the kind of results that they saw in the New Testament church of Acts. So if we are honest, we have yet to change our nations, and we have yet to see the gospel preached throughout the whole world. Again, I am not taking away from any advances that we have made over these last 76 years as the United Pentecostal Church, and even before that as the Oneness movement and the Pentecostal movement. But I believe that we truly have not yet begun to change nations as the Lord desires for us to do. So let me say: I'm thankful for what we've seen up to this point — and I preface what I'm saying with that — but I'm not convinced that we have experienced the "greater works than these" that Jesus described in John chapter 14. He said, "Greater works than these shall ye do." And I believe that we are on the precipice of seeing the greatest revival that this world has ever seen.

But we can say that we have become more professional in our churches; we are professional at doing church. We can say that we have become more accepted in our culture as Christians. We have learned to have more attractive services — what people call now seeker-friendly atmospheres. And that seeker-friendly or seeker-sensitive movement currently is an approach to evangelizing through application of the latest marketing techniques, really. But I'm not convinced that what we call church, or what we have experienced up to this point, is what the apostles imagined what we would see. The church really has become a subculture, if we are honest and we look at the church as a whole. The church has become a subculture, and that means it has become a culture within a culture. However, a subculture is wrong when we're talking about the church, because we have been called to be a counterculture that makes a new culture. And so it's about becoming disciples, not about becoming converts, who can change the culture of what we are living in today.

And so let's go back to our text in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 through 12. It says: "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Now here, when we look at this word in verse 12 — the word "perfecting" in the Greek is a word I have a hard time pronouncing, but katartismos — and this means to bring into proper or true alignment. So as we look at verse 12 of Ephesians chapter 4, we could translate it like this; we could say: "For the putting into proper or true alignment of the saints, for the work of the ministry." So when we look at that Scripture and we see the five-fold ministry that we are so familiar with — apostles and prophets and evangelists, pastors and teachers — their purpose, of the five-fold ministry, is for the perfecting — using that Greek word — for the putting into proper or true alignment of the saints, for the work of the ministry.

Now, when we look at the word "church," and we read about the church for the first time in Matthew chapter 16, verse 18 — it says: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Here Jesus is speaking, and He's using the word — the first time; it's the first mention of the church. And when we look at Scripture, we remember that this is the first time that the church, or the word "church," is mentioned. It's not mentioned in the Old Testament. And Jesus is saying to them something that is brand new. So remember, there's no church previously, and so this is the initiation of something — a new kind of thinking. And so what was the reaction on the faces of the apostles after Jesus said that they would be the church? Maybe they looked at Jesus; they said, "Wow, Jesus, that's great. Just one question, Lord: what is the church? We've never heard this word before." And in verse 19, Jesus said: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

So with these two verses, let's now look at the starting of a church, with an emphasizing of the Greek word ekklesia being used here for the word "church." And here, the word ekklesia comes from the Greeks, and it means an assembly of people who govern the affairs of a state, or a parliament. So it means that in the time of the Greek empire, their society was to be the preeminent one: their thinking, their politics and religion became the rules of society for the people of the Greek lands. And the Romans, they actually took this one step further in dealing with the barbarians — the barbarians that they were facing at that time. When a general was sent out to war, he had with him a person who was given direct orders from the senate of Rome to become an ambassador. This ambassador would join with the generals of the army and, by direct authority of the state, using the ekklesia — that ekklesia thinking — start to teach the conquered barbarians the language; they would teach them the ways; they would teach them the culture of Rome, until everyone talked and walked like a Roman. And it was believed that with this process the barbarians would no longer hold on to the heritage of their forefathers, but they would begin to adopt a different culture that would continue to preserve the Roman ideology. And what this eventually did was bring everyone in the lands into the mentality that was not about creating a person's kingdom, but the Roman kingdom. And the ekklesia was the steward of this movement; this was the way that they propagated their way of thinking.

And the challenge we have today is to look back into the original language of the Word of God and its commands, without adding to our own interpretation or traditions that have been developed over time. And if we look at the instruction of the Lord from the book of Acts, we would start to discover that we first need to have the stewards of the kingdom of God — the bearers of the ekklesia — in full operation for the success to come to the church. Remember, ekklesia is about introducing the culture of heaven on earth. It's about introducing the culture of Christ to the people — that here we are not a subculture, but we are a counterculture that is bringing a new culture, and is bringing a new teaching, a new philosophy, a new way of thinking, a new way of doing things. When God fills us with the baptism of the Holy Ghost, it changes us. It changes our way of thinking; it changes our way of talking; it changes the way that we do things in life. And so we, as the church — the ekklesia — we have been called to go preach the gospel to every creature. We have been called to make disciples. We have been called to be the ekklesia. We have been given this gospel to take it to the world, to change the culture that is around us. Now, in order to do that, we have got to make sure that we have the stewards of the kingdom of God. And that goes back to the five-fold ministry: we must have the apostles, the prophets, the pastors, the teachers — we must have the five-fold ministry in order to prepare the saints to go forth to be the church.

And so it may come as a surprise to some to learn — let's talk about for a moment the office of the pastor. The office, or the ministry, of the pastor as we know it only emerged after the Protestant Reformation. That means in the 2,000-year history of the church, the common defined role of the pastor as we know it today has only been recognized for about one-fifth of the time: about 400 years of the 2,000 years that the church has been here, the role of pastor has only been recognized for about 400 years or so. And even more: the office of the evangelist — the ministry of the evangelist that we readily recognize in our movement today — in general, it was not even accepted until around the time of Charles Finney, only around 150 years ago. In fact, there was much debate around the mid-1800s among Christian leaders as to whether it was proper to recognize individuals as an evangelist. They had this debate among themselves: they saw Charles Finney; he was going; he was doing the work of an evangelist. And even in the 1800s, they were debating among themselves, said, "Okay, do we believe in this role of the evangelist?" And so what is common language to us today — we recognize people within our movement; we recognize people within the United Pentecostal Church as evangelists; they have a gifting of the evangelist; they have a ministry of evangelist — dear, only 150 years ago, some theologians condemned Charles Finney as an advocate of what they called "new measures." They said, "These are new measures, and we're not really sure if we believe in that."

But God is trying to bring us to a place where the five-fold ministry is commonplace among us, to do the job: for the putting into proper and true alignment of the saints, for the work of the ministry. And so if we are going to be effective in this last-day church before the coming of God, we have got to make sure that the five-fold ministry is in operation among us. We accept the role of teacher; we accept the role of pastor; we accept the role of evangelists — for the last 150 years. But we have got to make room for the five-fold ministry in order to accomplish what God wants us to accomplish in these last days.

We've really got to learn to demystify these five giftings or five ministries, and recognize that God is raising up people all around us with these ministries for the purpose to prepare the saints — to bring into alignment the saints — for the work of the ministry. If we're going to reach the billions of people that we have around the world, it is not going to be just a few teachers and pastors and preachers, but it's going to be a team of the five-fold ministry that is empowering the saints of God — and the saints of God going out and seeing a demonstration of the power of God. And so, whether we choose to use some of these ministries as titles or not — really, that's up to every one of you; those of you listening, you can choose to use titles or not titles. But I believe that we must make room; we must make place for these ministries in our midst. They are for the preparation; they are for the training; for the aligning of the saints for ministry. So I believe that we cannot expect the saints to work or to walk in apostolic authority if we refuse to recognize the importance of apostolic ministries to train them. We cannot send out the saints and tell them to demonstrate in apostolic authority when they have not been exposed to the five-fold ministry. We have wanted the saints to walk with apostolic demonstration and power while only recognizing the ministries of pastors, evangelists, and teachers to prepare them and to train them.

Again, there is — I believe — a move of the Spirit that has been calling us to go back to the original plan that made the church of Acts so dynamic and culture-changing, because the coming of the Lord is very soon. He is doing a quick work, and He is beginning to bring people together who believe in apostolic ministry. And He's beginning to bring together — bring people to the surface and bring people together — so that they can begin to equip people to reach this world. I believe that God desires everyone to be involved in apostolic demonstration, and for the gifts of the Spirit to be in operation in each believer's life. If you have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, you have the seed of every one of the apostolic gifts — every one of the gifts of the Spirit — in your heart, in your life. But it is not going to happen; those things are not going to come to fruition if we do not have five-fold ministry in operation in our churches.

Some of you, I believe, that are connected to this service this morning, to this seminar this morning — you have the gifting within you. The gifting of that apostle, the gifting of that prophet is upon you. I'm not for people giving themselves special titles, but you need to begin to recognize the giftings and the ministries that God has put into your life. I am a testimony and a testament of the apostolic giftings that begin to be revealed and begin to come to the surface in my own life when I begin to come in alignment, and begin to become in contact with people that I believe have apostolic ministries — people that I believe are prophets, people that I believe are apostles. When I became in contact with them, and I began to align with what the Spirit was doing, that is when I began to see a demonstration of the power of God like I had never seen before. I've been raised in this truth; I've been raised in the church; I've been raised believing for God to do the miraculous — preaching it, believing it, studying and believing that God could do it. And I believe that those things were put in me through the power of the Holy Ghost at a very young age. But those things begin to develop and begin to come to the surface when I begin to come in contact with people that had apostolic ministries — when I began to come in contact with people that I believe, biblically, would be described as apostles; I believe, biblically, would be described as prophets. And as I began to be exposed to the full five-fold ministry — not just teachers, not just evangelists, not just pastors, but also apostles and prophets — that is when I began to see the giftings that God had put in me begin to come to the surface. It was only a few years ago — about eight years ago — that the Lord began to lead me in those directions. And after becoming enlightened, and God beginning to align me with certain men of God, I began to see the miraculous like I had never seen before.

We see a biblical example that this can happen — that of what God is doing, of apostolic alignment. And I believe the biblical example we can read about in Ezekiel chapter 37. We read of Ezekiel's dry bones. Ezekiel prophesied two things in Ezekiel chapter 37. And verse 7: it says, "So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone." So what we see here is the bones begin to come together as the prophet began to prophesy, and begin to pray, and to begin to speak over those bones; the Bible says the bones came together. Verse 10 says: "So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet." So what happened? As the prophecy began to go over them, as the word of the prophet began to come up, what happened is life came into that body. And what was the result? The Bible says in Ezekiel 37:10 that an exceedingly great army came together. And I believe that that is what God is beginning to do, and what God is wanting to do in our movement: that as God is beginning to align people who have a hunger for apostolic ministry, people who have a hunger to see a demonstration of the power of God like they have never seen before, God is beginning to pull many of you that are hungry — He is beginning to connect you with other people that are hungry, and God is beginning to connect you with ministries and people that have apostolic demonstration in their ministries. I do not believe that is a coincidence. I believe that it is divinely brought about by the Lord. He is bringing those bones together. Why? What is the purpose? The purpose is so that a great army is able to rise up — that because of the five-fold ministry we will begin to prepare and train the saints for apostolic ministry, to see a demonstration of the power of God.

In our church that we have the privilege of pastoring in the city of Barcelona, Spain — downtown Barcelona — we have many people, many new people, new converts that have come into our church, and God has begun to use them mightily. And one of the things that I have tried to do intentionally in our church: I have tried to bring ministries into our church of people that I believe have an apostolic ministry. I want to have apostles; I want to have prophets; I want to have pastors; I want to have teachers; I want to have evangelists — all the five-fold ministry — that come into my church, that minister to my people. Because I have seen a great maturity that has begun to happen in them when they have been exposed to these different types of ministries. And I believe that this is biblical. We see from our reading of our text today that the five-fold ministry is for the perfecting of the saints, or for that alignment — for that true alignment of the saints — so that they can begin to minister and to see a demonstration of the power of God. There are many people in our church in Barcelona that God uses mightily in the working of miracles. God uses mightily in gifts of healing. God uses mightily in the prophetic ministries, and in tongues and interpretation — and the nine gifts are in operation in our church. And many, many of them are not preachers, or not people that will get behind a pulpit, but they have been equipped by apostolic ministry. That doesn't all come from me. I don't think that there is any one person that has all five giftings within them. But there are many people around our movement that have many different giftings. And I would like to encourage you: if you're a pastor, if you're a preacher in charge of a congregation, make sure that you are having those different types of ministries in your church, because it is for the perfecting; it is for the preparation of the saints. We all, as pastors — and as I speak as a pastor as well — there's only certain things that I can accomplish as a pastor. There's only a certain amount of hours that I have throughout the day. I have other things to do. But I have people — saints of God — that have been equipped through apostolic people and that have apostolic ministry.

What is that? What are the benefits from apostolic alignment? Well, the apostolic anointing begins to flow through you when you have apostolic alignment. I believe there's a spiritual transaction in the invisible world: the Holy Ghost finds open doors for imparting wisdom and revelation when we are aligned with what He is doing, and the whole church, or the whole ministry, benefits from people that are aligned with apostolic ministry.

I believe that in these last days, before the coming of the Lord, that God is trying to call many people — many of you who may be watching right now. He is calling us together, and He is calling us to seek after and to search for more than we have experienced before. We have had good services; we can preach good sermons. But we want to have an apostolic demonstration of the power of God. We want to have signs, wonders, and miracles on a normal basis. That is who we are as the church. It shouldn't be something that is extraordinary; it should be the ordinary among us. And so, in order for us to walk in that alignment, and to align ourselves with what God is doing, we've got to make sure that we have come into an alignment with apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers in our congregations, in our movements, for the perfecting, for the alignment, for the preparation of those saints who are going to do the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

I believe that the revival that God has for North America and has for around the world is much greater than any of our buildings can hold. I believe it is much greater than one person can put their hand on, can put their fingerprint on. But I believe that, as the revival breaks forth, God is raising up and is wanting to raise up many saints of God — people that are sitting on our pews, that are coming to church on a faithful basis — but God is wanting to use them as they are exposed to apostolic ministry. I believe that apostolic ministry in the future is something that God is calling every one of us to do — not just for a few, not just for a few select people that God has put a special anointing upon — but God is calling every one of us to come into apostolic alignment and to be used mightily by the power of the Holy Ghost.

As we close this session, I would like to pray for all of you, that God would begin to lead you and guide you. If you're a pastor, if you're a minister, I want to pray for your church — that God would connect you with men of God that are apostles, that are prophets, that are pastors, that are evangelists, that are teachers, that can connect with your church to help our saints to be aligned, to help our saints to be prepared for the work of the ministry. Lord Jesus, I pray right now for every person that is connected online — every pastor, every minister, every person that has hunger in their heart to be used mightily by God in these last days. I pray that You would use them mightily. I take dominion and authority over every spirit of doubt. I bind every spirit of fear, everything that would come against them. I bind every spirit of tradition, Lord. And I loose revelation of what You are doing in this last day. I loose revelation, God — revelation of what You are doing, and what Your Word says about apostolic ministry in these last days. We thank You for what You are doing. In Jesus' name we pray. In Jesus' name. May God bless you.