The Restoration of the Lord’s Headship in Church Meetings (Biblical History Explained)

I believe, with all my heart, that you never heard the term “headship” six months ago. I don’t think you did. I don’t think you’ve ever heard the term, or the idea, of a group of Christians meeting together without someone being over them to set the tone or direction for the topic of me. Have you ever heard that before? But if I had come and asked you in January when you broke away, “Do you want a man to come and lead you,” what would you have said? Is there anyone in here who had the idea that there would be someone raised up who would be your human head? Anyone in here? I really want to know. Anybody? Did you? Am I correct in saying there just was an instinct, may I use that word, that if God were going to do something in this country, in our day, it would be a body of people meeting together under the Lord? Can I say that?

Brothers, I watched the beginning of God’s work being born in this land; I was in the heart of it. Even in 1961 and 62, before anything had developed in this country, before anyone had come to help us, I saw all over this nation groups like you breaking away, and I saw the dangers and the pitfalls, and God put in my heart at that time the very burden that I delivered to you this morning and this evening. Brothers and sisters, I believe I could have delivered most of the message that I just finished a minute ago… eight years ago. And all over the country, I have never seen anybody doubt that question. This is what they felt that God was doing.

Okay. There is a flow all over America. Mine eyes have seen the glory. I’ve seen it with these eyes. All over America, I have seen people breaking away from denominations. But they have not been equipped, and there’s a wildfire over here, and signs and wonders over here, and someone wanting to come in and take them over over here. Just like in the 1800s and the early 1900s under the Schofield Bible movement, and oh, how history repeats itself over and over and over again. This matter has been stumbled. I have seen many groups come to this point where you are right now. I have seen the signs and wonders, and I’ve seen the division, and I’ve seen the middle way – the church being held together by some kind of authority being placed over the meetings. You understand what I mean? Some kind of rule comes in.

Now then, where shall we go? We have come to that very point. I know what God is doing in this country, and so do you. God has a burden. I know, I know, I can feel it in the atoms in my body, and so can you. There is a flow in this country to restore the headship of the Lord in His meetings. He has given us all the equipment. Through the ages, He has restored and restored and restored, and all the equipment is here and now.

We have just gone through 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, and praise the Lord, we’ve survived. Where shall we go from here? Shall we have division through looseness? Or shall we have control, and just halfway come into the meetings and experience the Lord? Or shall we take the cover completely off the Lord? I believe, brothers and sisters, that God is literally straining over heaven, waiting for a group of people to get past 1 Corinthians chapters 1 and 2, and say, “We’ll still go on.” I have seen so many groups of people, to keep from shattering, just welcome some kind of control. We have come to the midst of rebellion, we have come to the signs and wonders, we have come to 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, we’ve come to the knowledge; we have come into it, and now it is in death.

I told the brothers in the brothers’ meeting last week that 15 years ago, when somebody ran the four-minute mile for the first time, people had been trying it for hundreds of years, but the day the four-minute mile was run, within a matter of two weeks, the four-minute mile record was broken over and over and over again. If ever, if ever a group of people begin to live and meet under the headship of the Lord in a powerful way, hell will fall. Just the letters that have come in the recent weeks from these dear brothers and sisters, I can testify to you, for I’ve already seen how far the recovery has progressed in this country, and those who started always have to pay a greater price than those who come later.

If ever there is one group of people who breaks through, there will be a reign on this earth, all over this country, groups of brothers and sisters who will be able to meet under the headship of God. So, it has been delivered into your hands, and mine, to at least try! Brothers and sisters, I want to leave chapter 11. I tell you frankly, I’m frightened about next Wednesday night. I’m not sure you can survive, and yet I want to leave chapter 11 and go to chapter 12. I don’t want to get stuck in chapter 1 or chapter 2, nor do I want to see the Lord’s head partially covered. I am certain, I am absolutely certain, that someday in this land, with all the goods that God has brought together, there is going to be somebody who will say, We will not bow to human leadership in the meeting; we will have the full recovery of the Lord.”

Do we go to chapter 12? Then brothers and sisters, I say to you that God is going to reach into the inmost parts of your being and probe and plunge and change and break and stir, but praise the Lord, He will teach you slowly and surely by His Spirit. He will bring something out that has not been seen. I implore you to patience, but I implore you to endurance.

Say, do you know the first sign of an apostle? You might as well start learning some of this. Do you know the first sign of an apostle? The first sign of an apostle is patience. At least get the first sign. Be so patient, but be so determined that God will have His chance. It is no little thing that we have been brought here together. Let us get caught trying.