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To Him The Porter Openeth
My wife and I have spent over ten years in the former Soviet Union. When I first came to Moscow, I visited the tomb of Lenin. The soldiers formally shifted positions each watch. These new guards replaced the former with extreme speed and precision. In the beginning, churches were simply addressed as our Lord’s church in each city. Paul wrote “to the church” in Phillipi or at Corinth or to the church at Ephesus. Each apostle ordained elders in their specific churches where they had the oversight. With the prophets, they also laid the foundation and together with them, maintained its integrity. The smallest segment of each church in every city, met in a home. There were multiple shepherds and multiple local bishops or overseers. Yet with the conception of the first two denominations, there was a “changing of the guards”!
If you are a student of the bible and have the average of two or more versions in your family library, simply go to the complete Old and New Testament index of that bible version. Now read out loud the fifth book of the New Testament. Your voice now testifies of the weakened and undefined hero of the modern church. The full title of this fifth book is “the Acts of the Apostles.” This book tells the powerful story of how the original apostles first laid the foundation of the church! I believe that the one keeping the door is an apostle. This five-fold gift of God, today, is so misunderstood. But now he is being restored in the modern church, whether we like it or not. What he must keep is this original foundation of the Church. He is restoring once again this foundation that was laid in the beginning. He is also restoring the five-fold gifts.
Ephes.4:11“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;” In today’s church there seem to be three forms of government. The first form of government is the pastor ruled church. The pastor is the chief gift. The pastor is also a teacher. Normally, he has the un-challenged authority to channel the tithe to the interest of that small local church. Thus, many five-fold gifts are neglected. Under the levitical priesthood, no ministry gift was left out of the distribution of the tithe. The pastor also chooses if the church is to be a part of this denomination or that non-denomination.
The second form of government comes by the church submitting to a denomination. The final example of church authority is when a strong board controls that church.
All three of these above-mentioned church government plans are inventions of man. They are not derived from God’s original foundation and plan of operation for His church. Yet where is the understanding and authority of the apostle and the prophet today? Today, a mere three of the five-fold gifts; the pastor, teacher and the evangelist are recognized in modern church. I am keenly aware that there will be misunderstandings and abuses during the restoration period that is soon coming. I fear that many will turn away from what God is doing instead of embracing it. In spite of all opposition, God will restore the five-fold before we are raptured home!
It is my belief that this mantle of authority has been given to the apostle. This mantle and five-fold gift have been virtually stricken from the list of the five in modern Christianity. If recognized, the modern apostle has been renamed. We have chosen names like bishop, father, overseer and director, while the word apostle is undefined. If we do not use the bible term for this gift of God, then his authority and mantle, to say the least, is weakened.
If you were suffering with symptoms of cancer, your search for an oncologist, may take hours or days if in the yellow pages all doctors were listed under one heading. Your first call might be to a veterinarian doctor, then to a dentist, then to a doctor of theology and so on. Impatiently, you start asking one of these doctors, “Why don’t you just list in the phone book the specialty in which you were given this doctorate?” They reply, “We just don’t believe in titles”. If they don’t believe in uttering the special gift in which they trained and sacrificed to receive, then how can we trust the treatment that they would give?
This example may sound absurd, yet in the church today, the only five-fold gift that is recognized by title is the “pastor”. Matthew 10:41 “He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward.” In this entire chapter, Jesus was teaching the authority He was imparting to them. In verse 40, Jesus told them that anyone that “receives you receives me”. Many say, “I don’t believe in titles”. In verse 41, Jesus strongly opposes this un-belief! He proclaims that if the “seeker” looks beyond the humanity of that prophet or righteous man, and by-faith, embraces God’s gift in that person, he then receives the reward of God’s gift! Do not be ashamed to call an apostle, an evangelist or prophet by the gift of God that’s in them. Jesus believes in the title He gives to man, and so should we!
So let’s learn to receive this unknown hero that stands at the door of the sheepfold. The porter ministry needs to be studied and then received by the modern church. The porter ministry is being restored back to the church. It will be restored back to the church as the restoration of the five-fold gifts comes.
Church leadership must change for God’s kingdom to operate, in all of His glory. Bishops or overseers in our modern church can never replace the apostle. Elders in general are now men and women that give the most financially or seem to be the most successful in business. This person is then voted in as church board member. Many stay in this democratically elected position “till death do they part”. Yet this position is to be assigned by God. It is not through the election of man. Therefore, church boards, pastors, or denominations control the local church’s plan of operation and function. God has very little to do with it. For God’s kingdom to come in all of His Glory, church as normal must be restored back to God’s leadership and original plan.
I believe that the stage has been set for God to restore, once again, the operation of all five gifts found in Ephesians 4:11. The first is the apostle. He is the first in line of authority, answering to God for Christ’s church operating on the earth. The second is the prophet, working in unity with, yet not usurping authority over the apostle. Together, they first laid the foundation of the church. The apostle of this hour is the keeper of this original plan. The foundation is not to be laid again in every generation yet today’s apostle must keep the integrity of this original plan of operation. Next in God’s order are the evangelist, pastors and teachers. They are not to change around the vision and foundation, but to reinforce what has already been laid.
Today, we see the operation of the last three gifts. These are the evangelists, the pastor and teacher. Christian churches are pastor controlled, board controlled or denomination controlled. The only solution that God desires is the functioning of all five submitted to one another as He has ordained. The church must also return to an understanding of and functioning of God’s porters. Restoration of this magnitude can only be fulfilled with the next verse: Zech. 4:6 “Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” This is not only Gods word to Zerubbabel, but unto Christ’s Church today.
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