Outside the House
Lately the Lord has been telling us to come out and to join Him among the unchurched
people of the world. We went to Casper, Wyoming, last month and ministered among
the street people and poor of that town. Recently we went over to Missoula,
Montana and met with a dear brother in Christ who works among the incarcerated
Native American youth of that state. His name is Bud Heringer. That visit has
changed our lives.
Bud
was sharing with us how that He has found the presence of the Lord among the ochlas,
the outcast multitudes. When he is serving these rejects of our society, he
feels the presence of the Lord and knows the Lord's provision as he obeys Him
and is a voice and hands for Jesus, the same Jesus who said, "When I was
hungry, you fed me, thirsty, you gave me to drink, sick or in prison, you
visited me, naked, you clothed me. . . .what you did to the least of these, you have
done unto me." Bud's words went into our hearts like an arrow when he said, "Jesus was among the ochlas two thousand years ago and He is still there today!"
There
are many passages about Jesus and the multitudes in the gospels, but this is the
passage that the Lord lead me to when we got back home from our trip to Montana:
On that day Jesus went out
of the house, and was sitting by the sea. And great multitudes gathered to
Him, so that He got into a boat and sat down, and the whole multitude was
standing on the beach. (Matthew 13:1,2, NASB).
Those
who have the heart of Christ will
be found outside the house among the
multitudes. The word that was translated multitudes
in Matthew 13:2 is:
Oclov
ochlos {okh'los}
1)
a crowd
1a) a casual collection of people
1a1) a multitude of men who have flocked together in some
place
1a2) a throng
1b) a multitude
1b1) the common people, as opposed to the rulers and leading men
1b2) with contempt: the ignorant multitude, the populace
1c) a multitude
1c1) the multitudes, seems to denote troops of people gathered
together without order
Do
you want to sense Jesus' presence? Here
is where you will find Him, not in the holy mountain or in the temples of
today's fallen church system. He is STILL among the common people! Church is
still being held on the seashore or in the parks or in (God forbid) the taverns!
You will find Him wherever that one lost sheep is, not with the ninety and
nine, safely tucked in some pastor's sheepfold. He is with the ordinary people
who know they are sinners and in need of Him. Jesus never laid a hard trip on
the harlots, sinners, tax collectors or the masses, but He had many a harsh word
for the religious elite who desired to rule over them.
A
few days ago, we went out of the house again and sat by the sea of the
unchurched. He had us go to two secular coffee houses and just sit there and be
available and watch for Him to give us divine appointments and He did. There was
Craig from Indiana who was in town serving his dying mom. We were his friends.
There was Tyler who was all ears when the Lord had George share that the kingdom
of God was not a religion, but a family with God as the Father, Jesus the Son
and the rest of us brothers and sisters in Christ. He was touched with the
simplicity of the real gospel. God said that He is a Father to the fatherless
and a Husband to the widows. There are a lot of fatherless people out
there on the streets of this world and guess what? THAT is where Jesus STILL is!
He is with the multitudes, the
ochlas.
Oh yes, while we were at one of the coffee houses, we spent a half hour with a
young Mormon girl whose room mate was in Salt Lake at the temple listening to
their great prophet. We shared the truth with her that those who would worship
Him would no longer do it in the temple nor up on the mountain, but would do it
in Spirit and in Truth. Also that same Spirit would give her an unction so that
she would need no man to teach her any longer, but He would lead her into all truth.
We
will be going back and finding ourselves out of the house more often from now on, mingling with the common
people, as opposed to the rulers and leading men (see definition of
multitudes). We are tired of bandying words with religious people. Please be
praying that we will hear His voice as we pour out our souls to the hungry
multitude outside the camp (see Isaiah
58).
After
the great awakening the church started to once again to go outside the house taking the gospel to the lost of this world. The
eighteen hundreds was marked by the founding of many missions organizations who
were headed by men and women with a vision for the multitudes of the lost and
dying upon this earth. Many a man and women from the 1600s to the 1800s
made their mark upon the earth by reaching out to the poor and needy. But for
most of the last 1700 years the institutional church has been holed-up behind
its oak doors with Jesus outside knocking asking to be let in (Revelation
3:17-20). This last century has marked a great decline in the church's
missions work and of its leaders reaching out beyond their doors and from the
safe havens they have built in the free
world. The 1900s culminated in churches feeding themselves and storing up
wealth for themselves in a continual emphasis on tearing down their barns and
building bigger ones so that they could store more (see Luke 12:13-21).
The
sad thing is that just like it says in Revelations chapter three, they ARE rich,
increased with goods and DO see themselves as needing nothing! They have
accumulated wealth to themselves by ignoring the plight of the poor not only in
America, but in the third world.
We
believe that Jesus is now through standing outside the doors of Christendom,
begging with hat in hand, for us to let Him into His own church.
Many of us have come out unto Him and believe me, it is a whole different
world out here! But let us be careful that we do not trade our larger church
buildings for smaller ones as we start to meet in homes. When we hide behind
closed doors of any size, we leave Jesus outside. His heart is out there with
the ochlas.
Come up
here!
Right
after John saw the despicable state of the seven fallen churches in chapters two
and three of Revelations, he saw Jesus in a new location. He was no longer
walking among the seven lampstands of the seven churches or outside the door of
the church of Laodicea
After this I looked, and lo, in heaven an open door! And the first
voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, "Come up hither,
and I will show you what must take place after this." (Revelation 4:1, RSV).
It
is amazing how God's truth all comes into perspective once you get off your
pew and start walking it out by faith. It was Jesus' voice (see Revelation
1:10 and 11) calling through an open door in heaven like a trumpet calling an
army to action. He was calling for John to "Come up here." If you want to
REALLY know what the Spirit is doing in the world today, you have to go outside
the camp unto Him and bear His reproach as an outcast among your own people and
a church system that refuses to follow Him (see Hebrews 13:12-16). Where Jesus
was, you also find the multitudes of the disenfranchised. And where
the disenfranchised are is where Jesus still is!
Elvis Has Left the Building!
There
is a story that once at an Elvis Presley performance the crowd stayed in their
seats waiting for Elvis to come back out and do an encore. They cheered and
clapped and shouted, "Encore! Encore!", but no Elvis appeared. Finally, the
MC came out on the stage and said the now famous and often quoted words,
"Elvis has left the building!"
Jesus
is outside of the house! Those inside
the house are arguing over the Bible, making doctrines that they can use to bind
up each other up, and trying to get a leg up over one another as they argue
about who should be first. All the while they are giving praises to Jesus and
calling, "Encore! Encore! Send a revival to OUR church." They are like Cain
who on the one hand are making sacrifices to God and on the other rising
up and killing the spiritual life in one another through overt control.
Men
and women in the church today clamor for titles and recognition instead of
seeking the one title and position that Jesus allowed, the title of... doulos!
But Jesus called them (His disciples) to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave (doulos); even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him.
(Matthew 20:25-29, RSV).
The
word translated slave in the above verse means just that! Doulos! Look
closely at its meaning:
doulov
doulos {doo'-los}
1)
a slave, bondman, man of servile condition
1a) a slave
1b) metaph., one who gives himself up to another's will
those whose service is used by Christ in extending and
advancing his cause among men
1c) devoted to another to the
disregard of one's own interests
Do
you see titles of esteem here? How about special vestments of the holy
man? Pulpits and raised platforms? How about nice homes and fancy cars,
surely they must be in this definition! Hmmmm.
"Submit! Submit, They Cry!"
Those
who would like to be known as the leaders inside
the house want you to submit to
them and their leadership. Like Jesus said of the Pharisees, "You do well to
do as they say, but do not do as they do. For they say one thing and do
another." If the "leaders" wanting you to follow and submit to them are
truly your bond slaves, truly
devoted to the church in disregard to their own interests, and are giving
themselves to your needs on every level, both spiritual and temporal (that was
what the famous apostle Paul did, by the way), chances are it is Christ abiding
in them and you should follow their example and do as they do. But if that
person is demanding and controlling and their attitude is one of "you must
recognize who I am in this church," or "I am in charge here! You must do as
I say, because I am one of the 'five-fold'," you can bet
they are no doulos and have no
place in God's true church leadership. They need to repent!
Look
at what preceded Jesus' words in the above passage from Matthew!
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him, with her
sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something.
And he said to her, "What do you want?" She said to him, "Command
that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your
left, in your kingdom."
But Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?" They said to him, "We are able."
He said to
them, "You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not
mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father."
And when the
ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. (Matthew 20:20-24, RSV).
Clamoring
for position is so church, but drinking His cup is not. Note, she asked
Jesus to command
that her two sons would be given elevated positions. He did not then and
Jesus still does not command that we submit to those who would be like the kings of the
Gentiles in the church today! If you are about to bring up some passage in the
New Testament that says the laity should
submit to the clergy, then you
should go to your concordance and search it out. We already have searched it
out, and many such passages were translated incorrectly to give power to the
King so he could control the masses and rule over them through the church
bishops. Even many of the newer translations carry on the traditions of the King
James Bible. Top down authority is not in there folks, and it does not belong in
the ekklesia of Jesus, the servant of
all, either.
Look
at verse twenty-four. Anytime you have would-be leaders clamoring for folks to
submit to them and positions and titles so that they can rule over the ekklesia
of God, you have strife and indignation. You want people to follow you? First
repent of your lording over mentality,
get outside your house, mingle among the masses of lost sheep and just be one of them. That
is how Hudson Taylor started out in China. That is how
David Wilkerson started out in New York City and look what happened! That
is how an eighteen year old English girl named Jackie Pullinger Tu started out
in Hong Kong twenty years ago, serving the drug addicts, and prostitutes in the
old walled city. From what we have been able to learn, Mother Theresa had the
spirit of Christ and was walking this out among the destitute multitudes of
Calcutta. She was never too good to dress the wounds of a leper or to change
diapers. She just wanted to be where Jesus is.
That
is how Jesus started out and finished the race there in Israel, too, walking
among the masses with no recognition in the church system of 2000 years ago. He
was crucified between two thieves. He did not need a title. He died with a
placard over His head that read, "King of the Jews." "Blessed be the Son
of David!" they cried, "Is He the Prophet?" People were telling HIM who He
was! Just do the stuff! To hell with all this hierarchical systems of men! That
is where it all came from, so send it back! Just don't hang onto it or you
will find yourself going there with it!
I
want to share a little note I got from a sister who has the vision for the ochlas
that a true doulos of God should have and is going outside the house to do it:
"Amen
brother! We have got to go where the people are. I am so tired of being a bench
warmer sitting in a pew. Well, I just can't do it any more -- it would be sin.
While I was in the Philippines, I was walking in the market area and it was
swarming with people. All kinds of people, and I thought, "this is just like it
was in Jesus' day. The dirty and poor, blind and lame, along with the
prostitutes and gays, passing by you. And I could feel Jesus. And I thought
about how He would reach out to these people and heal them. Please pray for me
as I go into this area and attempt to do the works of Christ."
You
can believe that my prayers are with one such as this. So get out there and
mingle, folks! Jesus is still here in this earth and He wants to use you to love
the lost, the sick and the wounded outcasts who fear to darken the doors of a
church where they might get wounded again. What you do to and for the least of
these you do to Him.
And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"
And he answered and said, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."
And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS, AND YOU WILL LIVE."
But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
Jesus
replied and said, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and
he fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went off leaving
him half dead.
"But
a certain Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him,
he felt compassion, and came to
him, and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn,
and took care of him.
"Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands?"
And
he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." And
Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same." (Luke 10:25-37, NASB).