Priests are Buffers for People who Prefer to Keep Sinning

As is often the case, today I am freaked out by God’s confirmation.

I generally watch Derek Prince while fixing and eating breakfast. I can’t think of a better way to redeem the time. Today I listened to him talking about the headship of Jesus. It was like listening to myself, talking about the things God had told me.

God tells everyone the exact same things. God does not have opinions. His view is fact. It is correct, which is what “righteous” means. Christians who hear from God never disagree. There is no such thing as “healthy debate.” Opinions are for the ungodly and the uninformed. No one debates in heaven. Everyone knows the truth.

For a long time, God has been telling me the Holy Spirit functioned as a sort of nervous system for the body of Christ. Yahweh (or “Yah”) does the thinking and deciding. Jesus talks to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit talks to Christians who can hear him. Jesus is the head of the body. We are the other parts. This is why the Bible calls us “the body of Christ.”

God told me this: “The head sees things, and reaches them, first.”

Look at Jesus. He was the first to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. He was the first to have the Holy Spirit live in him on a permanent basis, unlike the prophets, who only got visits. He also preceded us in persecution and martyrdom. He expects us to go through certain experiences, but he went through them first, so we can’t say he doesn’t know what it’s like to suffer what we do.

In the teaching I saw today, Derek Prince confirmed a lot of this. He also made it clear that you can’t really be part of the body unless you hear and obey the Holy Spirit (not the Holy List of Rules). How long have I been saying that? The Bible says it, but not many people pay attention. It says, “As many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God.”

It’s not enough to be baptized and claim salvation.

He also said things I know to be wrong. He isn’t right about everything, and that underscores the importance of getting to know God personally. You have to have the Holy Spirit available, if you want to avoid following in other men’s mistakes.

He cited the appointment of Matthias as an example of obeying the Holy Spirit.

Matthias was the disciple who replaced Judas Iscariot. The other disciples didn’t know what to do. The Holy Spirit didn’t tell them who should be appointed. They gave up and cast lots, which is essentially the same thing as rolling dice. The lot fell to Matthias, and he went on to be a very undistinguished disciple. You can look that up.

Not long after Matthias was chosen through gambling, Paul fell down on the road to Damascus, and the rest is history. Paul was the greatest of the disciples, and he was not numbered among the 12.

Perry Stone says the disciples blew it when they used gambling to pick a replacement. He points to the weak record of Matthias.

Prince says God was glorified because the disciples used lots, allowing God to choose Judas’ replacement. That’s clearly not right. Think of the glory God would have gotten had they waited for Paul–possibly their worst human enemy–to join the group. God says we are to be more than conquerors, meaning we are supposed to bring people into the body instead of just defeating them. Paul’s conversion exemplifies going beyond conquering.

Prince has said other things that I know are wrong. He said we should never ask God to help us to be humble, because God would then humiliate us. Way off track. Take a look at Psalm 19:

Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

What about Galatians 5:22? It says humility is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, imparted to us supernaturally.

The Bible tells us to humble ourselves, and Prince thinks that proves it isn’t God’s job, but clearly, if humility is a fruit of the Spirit, God fully intends to help. Galatians 5:22 says God will give us love, faith, and joy supernaturally. Why should humility be different? We are heirs, not galley slaves. God wants to give us things. If we generate them ourselves, the glory is ours, not his. God wants glory, and God is not a thief. If he wants glory for something, it means he intends to do it himself.

What could be more perverse than generating your own humility? If you could make yourself humble, you would have something to be proud of! It makes no sense.

As for Matthias, it should be obvious from his lack of achievement and the ascension of Paul that gambling was the wrong solution. In the Old Testament, God directed the Jews to cast lots a few times, but generally, gambling is a totally unnecessary vice that leads to addiction, covetousness, idolatry, violence, and the destruction of human beings and families.

When I was a kid, I thought it was funny that my great-grandfather wouldn’t allow playing cards in his house, but now I understand that he was right. You shouldn’t gamble in any way unless you have a very clear command from God. I won’t even play Monopoly now.

Matthias was chosen BEFORE the Holy Spirit fell on the church. They weren’t ready to hear from God. They had little authority and little guidance. Jesus told them to wait for power, but they got ahead of God and chose Matthias by carnal means.

Look at the story of Stephen, who was also chosen to build up the church. The 12 disciples told the church to send them 7 Holy Spirit-filled men of good report, and before these men, including Stephen, were appointed, the disciples prayed. They did not roll dice. Stephen went on to glorify God in his life and death, and his story in the book of Acts still reaches people today.

It’s funny, but in teaching about the role of the Holy Spirit, Derek Prince helped me with the things he got right and also with his mistakes. The things he got right confirm that God has spoken to both of us, and God’s correction of the things he got wrong confirms some of what God said: rely on the Holy Spirit, personally, not on men.

There is a limit on what you can teach people about God. He’s like strawberry ice cream. You can go to someone who has never had strawberry ice cream, and you can tell him things about it. You can say it’s sweet and cold and that it has a wonderful texture. You can compare it to ice cream made from other berries. In the end, he’s going to have to try it himself. There are many, many things about the Christian life that can’t be explained through words. Maybe this is why the Bible says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

We depend way too much on human beings, many of them powerless old men in satin dresses. No preacher can save you. Every person is like a man alone in a tiny boat. You can yell encouragement and correction to other people as you sail in the right direction, but you can’t bring them aboard. They have to know God for themselves. Churches tend to discourage personal relationships with God. They turn men into little false gods, and gratefully, we let them handle our Christianity for us, so we don’t have to make sacrifices.

They’re supposed to bring us closer to God, but they act like goalkeepers, keeping us away from him, and we’re grateful for it, because we like keeping our distance.

People make mistakes. They fall from grace. Even if a man does everything right, he eventually dies. If you depend on a man, and then he drops dead, you’re in trouble.

In the sermon I heard today, Derek Prince said we had to become more and more dependent on God. That amazed me, because it was only a few weeks ago that God told me to pray to become as dependent on him as possible.

Things are changing fast for me, and I think it reflects the fact that the world is in deep trouble. I believe God is equipping people like me quickly because bad things are on the way. I don’t believe America is going to recover this time. We are getting very corrupt. We are becoming a nation of angry, arrogant, tattooed, pierced, mutilated, sexually depraved, self-righteous, murderous children who hate good and love evil. We decorate ourselves to look like convicts, witches, and sorcerers. I think we passed a critical point some time ago.

Perry Stone gave a prophecy in 2015, in which he said we would get another chance, and he mentioned pockets of revival, but that was 4 years back, and I think we have blown it since then. That’s what the Spirit seems to say.

Maybe I sound like certain Christians who are obsessed with external events and who can’t wait to see God’s judgment…on other people. I hope not. I focus on myself and on the individuals God uses me to reach. There is no hope for the world or for nations while Jesus remains a spiritual and not political leader. We are not here to build nations. We are here to be used to save individuals. Talk of saving races, nations, cities, and neighborhoods is silly and misguided. That time hasn’t come yet.