We are contending to see God’s Kingdom established in the earth with purity. If our striving has been remiss in any area, it is probably because we have not given enough attention to teaching the scriptural principles of divine order, particularly to those who really need to hear them. Pastors may have been set in without being shown the scriptural patterns for pastors to follow. The elders must be admonished and taught to truly be elders.
It is one thing to go through the motions of divine order; it is quite another to have the flow from the Lord Himself, like that holy anointing oil. “How good and blessed it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious anointing oil that ran down upon Aaron’s beard, that came down upon the skirt of his garments” (Psalm 133:1–2). The anointing must flow freely, from the top to the bottom; the anointing must come from the Lord, and then flow all the way down to the little people.
We have seen impasses in this flow. How can it be that even though we have such a wonderful Word from the Lord, yet in some churches there are little people languishing and even dying in overwhelming problems? We must adhere more closely to the divine order that the Lord has set before us. The need is not to solve problems, but to open the flow. We can continue to deal with problems, but the real answer is in the flow of the anointing. As long as the flow from the Lord is not hindered, and it comes down to each one with the Word of the Lord meeting the needs, then everyone benefits. All that we have heard about communication and relationships has been designed to open the flow so that God can move more effectively and freely.
Unless the Lord anoints your ears to hear and anoints your heart to perceive the Word, it is very difficult to come away from receiving that Word without having a conflict in your mind. When the Word is a revelation to you, there is no conflict; but when there is no revelation to your heart, the Word seems strange and foreign to you and you may react, “I never thought of that before. I must analyze it to see if it seems reasonable to me.” In the final analysis, the Word that we have been taught is reasonable, yet very few of us have come into this end-time walk in the Spirit by virtue of our reasoning. We have come in rather because God brought a revelation to our hearts, and the revelation of the Word made it live.
We do not always do everything right; we make many mistakes. However, our overall progress demonstrates that the path of the just is “shining more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18). For example, while our Kingdom schools may not yet be moving in all the teaching or the revelation that has been set before them, they are far superior to anything we have ever had or dreamed of—and they will continue to become even better, as the path shines more and more unto the perfect day. God will supply the needs as we sacrifice to build the schools. We will go on to fulfill the vision that the Lord has set before us. Many little living miracles have already been created all over the country because of these Kingdom schools. We have seen great spiritual growth, dedication, and sacrifice.
This is true not only in the schools, but in the churches as well. In their zeal, a few of our pastors may have done some unorthodox things. They are not professionals; they have never been told how to do certain things. The only requirement has been that a pastor have a revelation of the Word of the Kingdom, that he sees it as a Living Word from God for this generation, and that he honors it above all else.
The books of the New Testament may be classified in four groups: the gospels, the book of history (Acts), the doctrinal epistles, and the pastoral epistles. The pastoral epistles are the apostolic Word to those who are ministering and shepherding. Titus and I Timothy are good examples of this. The book of I Timothy is the pastoral epistle that from beginning to end reaches out to instruct the pastors and elders how to shepherd the flock. Those passages contain outstanding principles and implications for dealing with the real problems of churches which are involved with divine order. What is the best thing we can do to move forward under our present circumstances? Pray that there be an anointing of the Lord to receive the wisdom of the following Scriptures:
Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing,” and “The laborer is worthy of his wages.” The following verse requires our special attention because it has been violated: Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses.
Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also may be fearful of sinning. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels, to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality. Do not lay hands upon any one too hastily and thus share responsibility for the sins of others; keep yourself free from sin. I Timothy 5:17–22.
Revelation, impartation, and submission are all interwoven. We first have a revelation that He is the Lord. Then because He is the Lord, we believe that there is a way whereby what He thinks, what He wants, and what He wills can flow down to us. Never at any point do we say, concerning a shepherd, “Here is a man who will interpret God for all of us.” Rather, we say, “This man, at best, will be a channel of God for His revelation to flow down to us.” The best thing you can do at any point is to pray that the one over you has revelation, and that you have revelation of him and of his Word. Do not ever feel that any one man, any elder, any pastor, or any one group of men such as the apostolic company will be capable of running this move of God without you. The revelation must come down also to you!
For this reason there must be a free flow. When I speak a Word in a church, it will come to the pastors, to the elders, to the deacons, down to the last one of the people, even to the little children. If even one person is cut off from the Word, it is because the flow was not adequate; it was not right.
Whenever a person becomes a clogged channel, it is analogous to a blocked artery or vein; the blood may flow down, but if it cannot complete the circulation because of a constriction, then a very unhealthy condition is produced in the body. Likewise, the life of the Living Word must flow down from the Head and circulate through every member, so that the Body of Christ is edified and built up through that which every member, every joint, supplies (Ephesians 4:16).
This means that each of us supplies life. We do not manufacture it; we become the channel of it. We do not reach out to another and say, “I will give you of my reasoning ability and of my physical energy. I will impart to you my intelligence, my experience.” We do not need impartation on that level! Rather, we need to say to one another, “I will give you a Word from the Lord. I come in the name of the Lord and loose you with His power, His authority which flows through me.”
This is why we have the laying on of hands; they are a channel of flow. We are responsible for what we receive by impartation and for what we give by impartation. Throughout the Scriptures, God shows us that He is sending His Word of revelation down to us. If this process functions properly, then everyone who comes in will be told, in effect, “The key to your growth is not what you know, nor what you will be taught intellectually; it is what God will reveal to you. You can either sit here for six months waiting for ears to hear, or we will simply lay hands on you and pray for you, that the Lord will open your ears and start giving you revelation.”
We must remember, however, that the laying on of hands involves not only impartation, but also transference. We give and we receive through impartation. It is a two-way street. At one time we had a specific ministry service every week. A long line of people would come to have hands laid on them, to be ministered to and blessed. The Lord gave much revelation about them, and when they left they were probably thinking, “This is wonderful!” But when I reached home, I was completely exhausted and drained. I had imparted positive blessings to the people, but they in turn had often transferred negative things to me.
Paul tells us how to consider the elders who are to be a channel of flow from the Lord. The flow is to come through them down to the people, and then the people will be able to reach back to God. Paul mentioned one very practical aspect of this: Do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily, lest you share responsibility for the sins of others (I Timothy 5:22). Do not create an elder or a deacon or a pastor too quickly. First pray about it. Seek the Lord.
Because we saw this principle at the beginning of this move of restoration, we have never “elected” elders. Election of elders will never work. The Body of Christ is not a democratic association. The Word does not say that the people in a certain local church should vote and raise up a man on the basis of their vote—that they vote and thereby create a pastor or an apostle. That is not the way God moves when He wants a ministry to come forth. The commission does not come up through the ranks. It comes down from above, and then it is acknowledged and confirmed by the church.
Revelation becomes a very important factor in this. Let us suppose that we have revelation concerning a certain man, that he is to be an elder. Do we lay hands on him hastily and set him in? No, first we set him aside so that God can deal with him and prepare him. Then it will become evident to everyone who looks at him, who listens to him, that the anointing of God is upon him. Then the people have a revelation that this man should be set in as an elder. Over the years there have been surprisingly few dissenting voices to this process that God has established. It works much better than elections or appointments. When a man is set into an office, it is with a common witness of the people who can discern that man’s spirit and who have revelation of him.
The process then is not elections; it is confirmation. When we lay hands on someone, we are not intending to create an elder; we are confirming what God has revealed. Otherwise we are missing it entirely. We must only confirm what God is doing. Have you wondered why you have not been set into a certain ministry? Don’t ask me; ask the Lord. I deal a little in the execution of these matters, but He is the boss! He is the Lord over all of us.
You may have observed a healthy fear in me. When I am asked a question, and I do not know the will of the Lord on it, I keep my mouth shut. Hold the mistakes down to a minimum, because human judgment must not enter into the flow of what God is doing. When you wonder about someone, ask the Lord, “Show me exactly what You think about this one. Show me Your will for him, what You have chosen him to be, what You want him to do, what direction his life should take.” God is still capable of saying, “Prophets and teachers, separate unto Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts 13:2). He is the one who does the calling. He is the one who whispers in the ears of prophets, “Lay hands on these and send them out.”
It is very important that we understand how necessary it is for a revelation to be confirmed. Because many of you were not present when the original foundation was laid for this whole move of the Spirit, it is necessary that we come back to this basic vision and reiterate it. It is good to realize that this is the way it is: We do not have a hierarchy, but we have men of God. During His ministry here on earth, the Lord bypassed the religious people because they were accustomed to sectarian authority. Instead He found some fishermen, a tax collector, a few simple men, and told them, “Come, follow Me” (Matthew 4:19). They followed Him and they became the fishers of men. They became the ones who could work with the flock, in accordance with Christ’s command, “Do you love Me? Feed My sheep” (John 21:16–17).
There are many more ministries to come forth yet. Sometimes as we watch a man’s growth, we see that he has gone as far as he can in that local church on that level. He pressed into a certain spiritual level and sustained it as long as he could. But then he started on a downward curve, and now it looks as though he is ready to die on the vine. Then we realize that we must do something about him. We must get him in motion. We must get him out into a bigger field. When you have revelation over a man, you carefully watch these things. Someone without that revelation might have looked at this same man and said, “We had better correct him; he is beginning to back off a little.” No, he was not backing off. He was like a prizefighter who is overtrained. We must get him into the ring quickly, get him in there slugging. This was what he was trained and prepared for, so let us get him moving.
When a man has progressed as far as he can in a certain area or local church, it is wrong to restrain him there. However, you can sin in the other direction also by setting a man into office too hastily. First let him be set aside, for if he enters into that office without the necessary preparation in his spirit, you will become responsible for his sins. This is not to say that we must find out all of his little habits and things he is doing. We are not concerned about that so much as we are about the state of his heart, the quality of his spirit. I have seen situations where ministries laid hands on a man who was unprepared. By putting him in a situation of responsibility prematurely, the people were sometimes deeply hurt and the man upon whom hands were laid was destroyed. He was thrown into a level of spiritual warfare that he could not handle and for which he was unprepared.
We go “from glory to glory” (II Corinthians 3:18). We “grow in grace and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18). When Paul wrote about the qualifications of a deacon, he said that hands should not be laid too quickly on a novice to commission him as a deacon, lest he be lifted up with pride and fall in the condemnation of the devil (I Timothy 3:6–7). Even a deacon cannot be a novice or a beginner. Does that mean we cannot be “instant saints”? It may be possible to become an instant saint; but it is not likely and it does not appear possible to become an instant elder. God deals very severely in the life of one who is to have an overseer ministry or a teacher ministry (I Timothy 3:1–7; James 3:1).
It is imperative that we bless and minister to all the pastors, elders, and deacons in each local church, and then say to the members of the local body, “Here are the ministries that God has put over you.” If you think that you know who and what they are, do you really? That is the real issue. Even when you know all about a brother, including his failings and weaknesses, you must still love him and accept his ministry, and believe for God to open the door to him for what God has for him.
This is a beautiful revelation about divine order. This is the way your church is to function. It should make no difference if a pastor is away for a period of time. Elders and ministers should be able to carry the flow right on every week or month of his absence. If I were to disappear tomorrow and not come back for years, the churches should continue moving right along because they are built on a divine order. Remember that the churches which stood through the centuries of devastation and apostasy were churches which were built according to apostolic order.
Let me repeat the precaution Paul gives: Do not lay hands too hastily on anyone, lest you share responsibility for the sins of others. Keep yourself free from that; do not pick up a lot of garbage by moving prematurely. Understand that the whole process of eldership involves neither elections nor hasty action. We have seen some men who were set aside for years before the preparation was completed; others need to be set aside for only a matter of months. Isn’t this embarrassing? Yes, and maybe that is exactly what is necessary. God may have to deal deeply with a man before he realizes, “There are prophecies over me. There is a commission from God as to what I am to be. I have to move on it!” Then as he earnestly seeks God and reaches into the Lord, something happens to him. Soon others see the grace of God abounding in his life, and his brothers in Christ realize that they should lay hands on this man and set him into the place he will fill. You confirm, commission, and impart what God has given by revelation.
What else did Paul say about elders? Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor. I Timothy 5:17a. I think that means not only spiritual honor, but also financial blessing. They may need financial help so that they need not be preoccupied continually with the routine of making a living. Instead, they can give themselves to the ministry. The Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.” Deuteronomy 25:4. To thresh the wheat, the ox walked over it again and again to separate the wheat from the chaff. Then the men would throw the grain up in the air or flail it some more. While the ox was walking on the grain, he would try to eat some of it. If the ox belonged to a stingy farmer, that farmer would muzzle the ox to prevent his eating the grain. But God gave a law through Moses that the ox is not to be muzzled while he is threshing.
That law has a wide application. Paul quoted it in reference to elders and deacons. He said that if they have already shown that they are not greedy, then there is no reason to muzzle them. Allow them to come freely and say, “I have a need; help me with it.” There are elders who are not full-time ministries, but they are very effective. However, we apply this principle to what is commonly called “full-time ministries.” These are men who have such a preoccupation in the ministry that they do not have time to work at anything else, or to earn a living. All of their time is used in effective ministry.
On the other hand, there is an economy that God orders too. If a man does not spend all of his time giving himself to the work of the ministry, then he should go to work and support himself, rather than having the church support him. The work ethic is never lost in the Kingdom of God. The work ethic must be present within those who work hard at preaching and teaching. If they are not diligent to devote their last ounce of energy to doing the will of the Lord and ministering His Word, then let them support themselves. They can be just as effective as an elder whether they are working at a secular job or not. This is the general principle. It is not a matter of our judging anyone; this is simply the way holy Kingdom economy functions.
Paul continued, Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. I Timothy 5:19. Exactly what was Paul talking about here? In the Kingdom, there seems to be a certain level of diplomatic immunity that is given to a ministry. To understand why this is necessary, look back in the Old Testament to Moses. When the children of Israel were out in the wilderness, they murmured against the Lord and against Moses (Exodus 16:7–8). Sometimes they murmured only against Moses! (Exodus 15:24; 17:3.) It is very easy to point to the leaders and judge them, and demand almost outrageous things of them. Yet you may have no concept of their responsibility, or how they stand in the gap before God for you. They may be walking very humbly while people are taking potshots at them. That is the way it was when people had “stewed preacher” for dinner on Sunday night. They would go home and sit around the table and criticize the preacher. That is not to be. We will not be guilty of that. If there is something wrong, get two or three witnesses of his wrongdoing and confront that elder with what is wrong.
Why does the Lord require two or three witnesses when confronting a brother? (Matthew 18:16.) Because we are not to go by hearsay. We will never accuse a brother without absolute proof. God laid down this requirement: It is only at the mouth of two or three witnesses that a matter is established (Deuteronomy 19:15). In essence, He said that when someone speaks against His servant, it must be an accurate Word from God, and not one man’s word.
After two or three witnesses have confronted the sinner, then what happens? Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also may be fearful of sinning. I Timothy 5:20. We have not done that either, but we should. In fact, the elders should actually welcome that. When a situation arises, two or three witnesses should rebuke the transgressor. Then they should encourage him to repent so that the matter is ended. But if he will not repent, then the consequences should be laid out before him.
Just as ministries have special immunities, so they also are in a place of special jeopardy because of the focus that is on them. A man who has been given a spiritual position has been provided with an immunity, for God said, “Touch not Mine anointed and do My prophets no harm” (I Chronicles 16:22). This means that unless there is something wrong in his life, you keep your mouth shut. But if he does do something wrong, he has a responsibility; he will either repent or be exposed in the situation before everyone. That is fair enough. A man cannot accept that immunity without also taking that responsibility.
Does this sound a bit like old order? Actually, the old order never did follow this divine order. They did not have the faith. Instead, they ripped one another apart with innuendos and aspersions. Don’t you hate that? God says He hates it. Seven things are an abomination to God, according to Proverbs 6:16. One of them is the man who “sows discord among the brothers” (verse 19). Simply keep your mouth shut when it comes to God’s anointed.
That is a lesson I want to ponder in my heart again. Someone gave me a little plaque on which is written, “God gave us two ears that we cannot close and one mouth that we can close. Was He trying to tell us something?” To a thoughtful mind, that does say something important!
When you become aware of the divine order behind this teaching, it gives you a sense of security. It makes the little flock realize, “This is what my shepherds are supposed to be.” Then you believe for them, you intercede in prayer for them, you strengthen them. Submit yourselves to those that have rule over you, as those who must give an account (Hebrews 13:17). They must give an account of the way they minister to you, and they must give an account for themselves.
James 3 begins with this caution: “Be not many of you teachers. Do not aspire to be teachers, knowing that you will fall under a heavier judgment.” The moment you take the responsibility to tell another man the Word of God, you are placed in a special category which God will judge more severely. But if you are faithful, then when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive an unfading crown.
Peter tells us about this in his first Epistle. Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow-elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. I Peter 5:1–4. Oh, how the Good Shepherd loves shepherds! How He loves elders. How He loves these men of God. He loves the way they take the oversight of the flock, not grudgingly or of necessity, but eagerly, that they might serve the people of the Lord. This must always be in their thinking.
This same chapter goes on to tell how the younger are to be submissive to the older, never with a generation gap or a schism in the Body, but with everyone learning how to flow together and work together. It is amazing how God creates unity through the diversity of ministries He brings forth. Unity comes through diversity, not through conformity. Notice how many different types of ministry and how many different members the Body has. Not one of those members is the same as another member. Yet not one member can say to another, “I have no need of you” (I Corinthians 12:20–21). The Body will flow in the Lord with oneness. The Kingdom will come through many members with one Spirit.
Do you want to be a better elder, a better pastor, a better member, a better sheep? We will flow together so that we can be open to everything God is saying to us. This divine order that God has revealed and brought forth functions well. How beautiful it will be to bring forth the Kingdom, as we give ourselves wholly to this divine order for the Church.