What if We Don’t Finish the Task (Part 3) – Preserving the Organic Church for Future Generations

Let’s see if there’s anything else that we will lose. The church in Richmond, Virginia, had elders in the beginning, and they have never allowed another man to be an elder, no matter who it was; it’s stuck. Where’s the growth? Where’s the opportunity? Where’s the feeling that the church accepts me and I can be me?

I’m gonna, I’m gonna do one more, and I’m getting big signals here, because this is the one I saved to the last. But I put this right up on all the blood that’s been spilled. He’s trying to teach God’s people to be loving, caring, and strong. I hope your brothers will learn to be caring and strong. You don’t let things destroy a church. That is being cured right now.

Okay, I have one more. And this one’s very dear to my heart because I’ve said this to a few brothers…Mike is familiar with my having said it. You’re gonna lose something really sacred. You’re gonna really lose workers who are not—workers who are not pious, and I am, of all men, may be one of the…offenders, but I’m also the least pious Christian worker you will ever meet. Pious workers have got to end. You don’t understand that piety in the ministry is universal. It is a protective garment that we put on because we’re on such shaky ground anyway.

I’ve often spoken of the castle priest. The castle priest is hired to take care of the castle and all the sin going on in it. He has to be both reverend and holy and ignore everything going on around him. Ministers are all castle priests, holy, and we’re dignified, but we sure don’t step up and be counted. I can tell you for sure the institutional church will not tolerate it because one day I decided to get real. I won by one vote. That’s how lucky I was.

What do I mean by a non-pious minister worker? Take a good look at me. Do you know that you’re not afraid of me? Do you know that you insult me? Do you know you tease me? Do you know you interrupt me? That you, you, huh? You say no to me. You are our letter, a proof of our… How can I tell you how effective it is to be aloof and pious, to cause God’s people to have fear, to hold you at a distance, and therefore you hold yourself at a distance. That we are not, we are not like you. We don’t sin or whatever it is.

We need a whole generation of men who work for a living, who are utterly devoted to the Lord, who are both strong, courageous, and gentle, and who will eat fire, if it comes to it. I will stand there and throw somebody out of the church without asking anybody about it, and know that the angels in heaven are standing with you because you paid a price to have that right.

God, don’t let these things die. Not with my cemetery, my grave, and not with the five or ten years that will follow. And now you make a decision because I’m gonna load you down with things to do to see that this work does not die, and I’m gonna need your cooperation, but if you do what I’ve already asked you to do, you will, you’ll be there, you’ll be, you’ll gonna step up to the plate just like everybody else. And I ask you that this not be a passing thing.

And the Dutch don’t know it, but the British know it, and they have had a testimony there so many times when only England did. We’ve got five or six brothers left, and I want to see a strong, beautiful, prevailing, overcoming testimony back in the British Isles.  And the Dutch, there are three of you here, I think you ought to be able to tell me whether or not the Dutch are going to say yes to this or not. If not, you can make a guess, but I will tell you this: if the Dutch do, I’m gonna give you some things to do that will make sure we’re not gone from here in five, ten, or fifteen years. And never forget that with every breath we take, we’re inching toward a testimony.