The Pulpit and the Preacher
The other day (during January 2007) when I was at the house of my brother in Christ, Parminder Puri, in New Delhi, for ministering to the people of God who had assembled there for a prayer meeting, I exhorted all the people of God to share their testimonies of how they were living for God. I did not want them to repeat the same testimonies of how they were once saved or the testimonies of how God performed miracles in their lives. At that time, a saint of God, namely Anup Inderpal Singh, a Sikh gentleman in his 50s, who was saved through the ministry of Parminder Puri was there. He is no more now. While sharing his testimony, he told us in Hindi, “Prabhu ke pas Nikad aana hai”. This means, “We should come near to God”. In fact it was a prophetic message for the people assembled there. At that time, a woman of God made a debut there. She was introduced to me as the wife of the pastor of a Pentecostal church there. For some months, she and her husband have been visiting the house of Parminder Puri and teaching the people from the Bible. On seeing me there, this lady immediately asked the mother of Parminder Puri, “Who will give God’s message?” Her question prompted me to search the New Testament Scriptures to know who can give God’s message under the New Covenant.
Under the Old Covenant, only the prophets were competent to declare God’s messages to the people. The Spirit of God used to descend upon the prophets at times and the latter gave God’s messages to the people. But under the New Covenant, those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior do possess the Holy Spirit in their earthen vessels. If I can give God’s message as inspired by the Holy Spirit, why cannot those who have received the Holy Spirit give God’s messages?
Before I could give my message to the people or before the lady could give her message to the people, the Holy Spirit had already given His message to the people assembled there. The message was very brief and apt, “Draw nigh to God”. “Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8). I interpreted this message for the people there. The people who had assembled there have been attending the prayer meeting in the house of Parminder Puri on every Saturday just to receive God’s material blessings. Though they received Jesus Christ as their Savior and Healer, they have not yet come very close to Him.
Today there are men-made church structures and the ministers of God are building their ministries on the foundation of these men-made church structures. There is a wide gulf between the pastors and the people of God who are “members” of these false church structures. A local church is a place where the people of God assemble themselves together for prayer and ministry. There should be elders or deacons in a local church. The elders or the deacons are spiritually mature people who are supposed to teach and guide the new believers so that the latter may become disciples of Jesus Christ. Today what the pastors do mainly is giving sermons on Sundays and receiving tithes from the people of God. Jesus commanded us to serve and not to be served. The Son of God came not to be ministered unto but to minister (Matt.20:28). The one who is great amongst us is supposed to serve us (Mat.20:26). These days, we see many ministers of God aspire to preach from the pulpits only. For them, service means preaching.
Paul in his epistle to the Corinthian church writes, “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace; For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted” (I Cor.14:29-31).
In the local churches of today, only the pastors give “God’s messages” and do not encourage the people of God to give God’s messages. Paul exhorted all the Corinthians to prophesy. Prophecy means giving God’s message. If a prophet gives his/her message, the others should judge his/her message. Then all of us should learn when one of us prophesies.
When I exhorted all the people assembled in the house of Parminder Puri to give God’s messages, that lady came to the scene with a question, “Who will give God’s message?” She thought that she or some other “pastor” was competent to give God’s message.
In our local churches, still the system of Levitical priesthood is practiced. Every child of God is a priest or a minister. The people who practice such Levitical priesthood bring the people into the bondage of the Old Covenant system. Jesus warned us against putting the new wine in the old bottles (Mat.9:17). The old bottles likened to the individual ministries do contain the new wine only for a short period but in the long run the same perish. Such individual ministries end up in men-made establishments which are prone to corruption through the Mammon of unrighteousness and popularity. Let us put the new wine in the new bottles likened to the team ministries. What the pastors of today do is the Levitical ministry which was done away with. They put the Holy Spirit i.e. the new wine in the old bottles of the Levitical ministry.
Before my recent visit to Dubai, U.A.E, I had requested my nephew in Dubai to talk to the pastor of his church to arrange for my ministry there. I thought he had arranged with his pastor for my giving a message from “the pulpit”. Normally, to our mind, ministry in a local church means preaching from a pulpit. When I reached there, I understood that no such arrangement was made. In Sharjah, U.A.E, I merely attended the worship services of the church concerned. When I attended the church, I did observe some things as led by the Holy Spirit. But I did not want to introduce myself to the pastors and to share the Lord’s message with the pastors or the elders in that church. I simply waited on the Lord for conveying the prophetic message to the church. In the evening of that particular day, by a mere coincidence, I came across one of the pastors of that church at a shopping mall in Dubai. I grabbed that opportunity to convey what the Lord wanted me to convey to his church. Then I got his email address and told him that I would send him a detailed e-mail message about his church. Then the following Friday, I again went to the same church. After the church service, I approached the pastors and conveyed the Lord’s message for their church. I also sent them the Lord’s message through their email addresses. It was the Lord’s will that I should give His message to the elders and not to the church congregation from the pulpit. God’s message can be conveyed in any manner.
The pulpit has now become corrupt. The pulpit used by servants of God like John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, William Booth, Hudson Taylor, Watchman Nee, Sadhu Sundar Singh, etc. became corrupt in this 21st century as the preachers sought popularity through the pulpit. For those servants of God, the pulpit was a means but the servants of God of this century the pulpit is an end. The pulpit or the evangelical dais has become a place of display of talents or the gifts of the Holy Spirit. God is never glorified through the corrupt pulpit so long as man is glorified through such a corrupt pulpit.
The Lord said unto Jeremiah, “See, I have this day set three over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root our, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant (Jer.1:10). Let us not build the Kingdom of Christ on the corrupt system of the Levitical priesthood but on the doctrines of Jesus Christ and on the apostolic doctrines. Let us pull down, destroy and throw down these men-made church structures and then build His Kingdom on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the Chief Corner Stone (Eph.2:20).
Revival will never come in a local church where the Levitical priesthood is entrenched. Let the single pastor give place to a team of elders and let every saint in the church be edified and equipped to serve God.
Guest Speakers and Elders
The local churches use to invite guest speakers to their revival meetings or annual conventions. According to the pastors of these churches, these “anointed servants” would bring God’s messages to their churches for revival. There are many “anointed servants” on the pews of these churches that are not recognized by these pastors. These pastors have never attempted to identify these people of God who are wasting their precious time in simply listening to the messages from these guest speakers. The word “guest speakers” is aptly given to these speakers because they are only guests and are not part of the local churches.
The local church should be a cradle for nurturing the budding apostles, prophets, evangelists, etc. The people of God sitting on the pews remain as babes, when the pastors choose to bring the “guest speakers” from overseas or from other places for giving “God’s messages”.
Some years ago, I attended a mega-church in Bangalore where thousands of people attended the church service. A woman of God, the wife of a dear servant of God from USA, a televangelist made a debut there. When she was asked by the pastor of the mega-church to share a word of exhortation, she prophesied that there was a person in their midst who was suffering from an abdominal disease. Then she claimed that she had received this as a word of knowledge from the Holy Spirit. I was just wondering as to why the Holy Spirit did not give a word of knowledge about the spiritual condition of the whole church. She presented another Christ who was more concerned about the abdominal disease of a single person and not about the spiritual condition of the thousands of people present there. This is the spiritual condition of a mega-church where a guest speaker steps into the church and prophesies on the bodily disease of a single person in the whole church.
The guest speakers are invited to give “God’s messages”. Of course, they come to the conventions after preparing their messages from the Bible. The audiences are emotionally stirred on hearing such messages and a few of them recommit their lives to Christ Jesus. The talents of the guest speakers are displayed on the pulpit or on the dais. At the end, the people make a beeline to the guest speakers for blessings or for healings. However, the people in the audience will continue to remain in the pews or in the audience as babes in Christ Jesus. They are just taught to receive blessings or healings and they are not equipped to be ministers of God like the guest speakers.
The guest speakers who are popular in the Christian world are booked throughout the year by the local churches who can afford to meet the travel and hotel expenses of the guest speakers. The guest speakers just present their ministries to the people of God in these churches and then return home with sufficient funds. They do not give any prophetic messages to these churches because they do not want to loose the pulpits in these churches. They generally give messages of peace and comfort so as to earn the favor of the pastors. They prophesy, “Ye shall have peace…..No evil shall come upon you…..” (Jer.23:17). These guest speakers do not go to those places or churches that do not have the necessary resources to meet all their travel and hotel expenses. There are many places in the Northern India where these guest speakers can minister to the lost souls through their talents of singing, music, etc. There are many churches that have no funds to invite these guest speakers. But they prefer to go abroad for ministry because they have been booked by these overseas churches. While delivering their messages in these churches, they will boldly claim that they have been led by the Holy Spirit to minister to them.
Why cannot the local churches equip the people of God in these churches for ministry? The people of God in that church need not go to a Bible college for training. The apostles ordained elders in every church (Acts 14:23). The elders of the local church can equip the people better than a Bible college for effective ministry. Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch for a whole year with the church for teaching many people (Acts 11:26). The elders are supposed to take time to teach the people of God in the church.
The Bible colleges do not raise the five types of New Testament ministries i.e. apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors as they impart only some Bible knowledge to their students and make them pastors or evangelists. After graduating from the Bible colleges, the students concerned merely look for church pulpits for ministry.
The elders in a local church can easily identify the people of God in their church for the five types of New Testament ministries. The guest speakers should help the local churches in fulfilling the great commission of our Lord Jesus Christ and in reviving these churches without promoting their own ministries through these churches.
Seminars
These days, we organize many seminars for conveying “God’s messages”. The speakers after meditating on the Word of God give “God’s messages” to the participants. The participants are asked to pay for the admission/registration fees, etc. for hearing “God’s messages”. Some international seminars are also being held in five star hotels where the poor saints cannot enter. I wonder how God can give His messages to an elite society which are not made available to the poor saints who cannot afford to enter such hotels. Jesus came to preach the gospel to the poor. Jesus wanted us to give freely what we have received freely. But we charge the hearers with the registration fees.
But enjoying the comforts of a five star hotel, I cannot give a message of suffering and sacrifice to the people assembled there. Paul gave God’s message from his prison cell. The pulpit of Paul was not a cozy stage. It was in the Jewish synagogues where the Pharisees and the Scribes were gathered that Paul gave God’s messages.
Jesus taught the people in the wilderness where there was no food. He performed the great miracle of feeding the thousands with the five loaves of bread and two fishes. But in this 21st century, we invite the rich people to the star hotels and give “God’s messages”.
The speakers, one after another, deliver “God’s messages” during the period of the seminar. If it is a seminar, the speakers should interact with the audience and hear the views of the audience also. In Delhi, we held an international seminar on behalf of my secular organization. One of the speakers was a highly qualified professional who delivers lectures in elite management institutes like Indian Institute of Management, etc. He had held the position of a Vice-President in an MNC. While interacting with the participants in the audience, he declined to speak from the dais but came down to interact with the participants who were also professionals in their respective fields. But what happens during the Christian seminars? Speakers give their messages to the participants without interacting with the latter. The Christian speakers think that they are only equipped to preach and not to listen and interact with others. The Christian preachers lack humility. They want to preach and not to listen.
We pray for the success of such men-made seminars and wants God to bless our efforts instead of doing His will. We are not led by the Spirit but are led by our own will. At times, we brag that the Holy Spirit has led us to organize such seminars.
In Delhi, a prophetic minister decided to hold a prophetic seminar after making an advertisement about the registration process, etc. In his notice, he boastfully claimed, “Kindly do not take this school of prophets like one of the many seminars going on in Delhi. After much prayer and with much burden, we have received this command from the Lord and are contemplating the School of Prophets, for your own benefits. Due to our busy schedule and the tight schedule of our leaders in Delhi, we even thought of postponing the meeting. But the Holy Spirit did not allow us to do so…..” Afterwards, I came to know that this seminar was postponed to some dates in March 2007 as the organizers could not get good or sufficient responses for holding this seminar. I was wondering as to why the prophetic minister could not hold the seminar on the dates already announced by him. If he could not get sufficient number of people, why could not give “God’s messages” to the few people who gave their consent to attend this seminar. Please note that he claimed that the Holy Spirit did not allow them to postpone the meeting fixed by him. But still he allowed the meeting to be postponed for want of “adequate participation”. The prophetic minister was more concerned about the number and not about the God’s messages about which, according to him, the Holy Spirit gave a command. If he had received this as a command from the Lord, then he should have obeyed this command without postponing the same just for the sake of numbers. During the session of my prophetic school, on a particular day, only one student turned up out of about 7 students. However, I took time and taught this single student. Today this student is pastoring his church in Delhi in a powerful manner.
Let us give God’s messages with all the humility as of a servant. Let us give His messages not in hotels but in places which are easily accessible to all the categories of the people without charging them any fees. If we have to meet our administrative expenses, let us appeal to the people of God for funds/donations. We should not charge the people who attend such seminars to hear “God’s messages”.
God’s messages should be given to the people in the God’s way. The devil can also give a message from the Bible but it cannot be God’s message. God’s message should emanate from a heart filled with humility and love. While holding a seminar, we should interact with each participant so as to hear him.
by Job Anbalagan