Foundation Stones (Part 6) – Why Only the Life of Christ Restores the Church

Well, that sounds a little crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, when I was a day old, I could smell. As I grew up, my senses began to develop. They’re a natural part of me. Never, brothers, never pay any attention to gifts in the church, and never try to guess who’s gifted in what, and never make anything special out of gifts or people who are gifted. They are only doing that which is natural to the organic life of God. They are expressing an aspect of your Savior and Lord. And you know something else, be a little careful because there is the natural gift and the divine gift, and if you’ll watch through the next 30 or 40 or 50 years, you’ll make an amazing discovery. And that is the natural gift should get broken, that the divine gift may come forth.

All my life, the Lord gave me a gift of just being able to draw beautiful paintings. It’s my gift, and I want to go out and start a ministry of painting portraits. Oh, what a wonderful gift that brother has. He sits down at the piano and he can just play. That’s his gift from God, baloney. That’s his gift from his mommy and daddy, and a piano player. And it’s his natural gift. Oh, that brother can sing. Oh, that’s the gift God gave him. No, that’s not God’s gift. That’s his natural gift. Let that brother who can sing go to the cross with his singing. Let that singing be broken, and let’s see that brother wash the feet of the saints, and gifts have to be broken.

Don’t pay attention to gifts. I know you aren’t going to believe this. Forgive the personal reference; I do not have a natural gift for speaking about things that are spiritual. I do not have a natural inclination toward being a spiritual person. I am not naturally a person who would wait on the Lord. My natural gift is that of a doer, a mover, and a shaker, and God broke that thing, and every morning when I get up, I see Him chopping it some more. He breaks it daily, and I get really frustrated with Him.

I would like to have a satellite floating around the earth with a worldwide TV program, seeing thousands get saved. I belong in a coliseum preaching about Jesus saves and giving an invitation with hundreds coming forward and getting money out of your pocket to keep it operating. What am I doing sitting up here in this little room talking to a little bunch of people? It is not my natural gift.

With no thought of this evening whatsoever, I said to my wife today, “What am I doing being a writer?” I cannot spell. I cannot put a sentence together properly. And there has never lived, nor will there ever live anybody who can understand or read my handwriting, and every book, if you’ve ever read a book of mine, you have no idea how many drafts it went through from gibberish, incoherent gibberish to literary masterpieces. 40, an average of 40 complete rewrites.

It’s not my gift, and furthermore, if God had not broken my health, and I blame the Lord for this, you would have never seen me write a book. I only write when I can’t do anything else. I get so sick I can’t do anything else. All right. No, this is not my nature; this is not what I’m supposed to do naturally. Don’t pay any attention to gifted men, natural gifts, and don’t pay attention to gifts in the church. They will emerge. And don’t give them labels. It’s all right that the first-century church gave them labels. It is not good that we give them labels today. I think it’s unwise to call men elders on this perverted day. You can build movements with labels. I could whip together a hundred thousand people with labels.

It was Napoleon Bonaparte who made the incredible statement. He brought out, he was with his generals one day, and he brought out one of the medals that he pins on the valiant men. He held up that little medal, and he said, “Gentlemen, it’s with these trinkets that we rule nations.” Well, it’s with little labels that we rule men and build movements. Elders, these brothers are elders. Oh, this brother is an apostle. I’m an apostle. Every time I hear someone say that, everything in me just rots. You know what I am? I’m going to tell you what I am. Nobody’s ever heard me tell you that.

You’ve never heard me tell what I am. I’m going to tell you tonight. I’m a brother. Just barely a brother. Just barely a brother. Then sometimes I wonder about that. I wouldn’t give you two cents for all the men on earth who call themselves apostles. I don’t think there’s one among them that is. Don’t call a man an elder. Don’t designate your prophets, your deacons, and your teachers. Just let them be. Let it grow up like the nose grew up on your face. There was nothing you could do about it.

If men experience life together in the house of God, there will come out the life of Christ. Life as life and life as manifestations of what He and He alone can do. Those things that He does, those are divine things. Okay, I’m kind of off subject tonight, but I’m glad this is getting on tape. You people out there, take your pastors and put them to pasture. I didn’t expect that kind of response.

Forget the gifts, you’re barking up the wrong tree. It will never bring the restoration of the church. It is the life of Jesus Christ being touched, embraced, lived, and experienced corporately, and out of that, will organically come to the Lord’s house. There is no other way. Well, that’s what was happening in Judea. Now, I’m trying my best to get to Antioch, and I’m getting there very slowly. Some of the prophets kept getting persecuted, and they kept moving. They don’t hear you in one city, flee to the next. And a band of real evangelistic prophets and teachers and evangelists went all the way north and north and west to Antioch.

Now, Antioch is a gentile city. Now, if you don’t know what gentile is, that’s a different culture, a different kind of people. They’re not circumcised, and they don’t have a Hebrew culture behind them. I’m about to say something here that’s not said a whole lot, and I don’t know why it’s not said a lot, because it’s a fact.

Those of you who are black brothers in this room, you got to America because your forefathers were slaves, right? They were slaves. That’s right, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Do you know what Julius Caesar said when he went to Great Britain? Listen to this, he’s standing up on a hill. This is a very little-known fact, and he’s watching these Anglos. Now he’s dark. He’s Italian. And he’s watching these Anglos. Angels. They are white like angels, they said, blond-headed people, blue-eyed. They never see blue-eyed people. You know what he saw down in that valley? These were people who drank blood out of skulls, and blood was dripping down here, and their hair was all matted, and they were slaying one another, and they had these little carts with horses pulling them. And they would run right through the middle of the battle with big old sword-like things out on the side. And those swords would cut down people as they went through.