Chapter 1 | Table of Contents | Summary and Notes
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 place1b) a multitude
1a2) a throng
1b1) the common people, as opposed to the rulers and leading men1c) a multitude
1b2) with contempt: the ignorant multitude, the populace
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 condition1a) 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 24. 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 loe 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. 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. And by chance a certain priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
"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. And on the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you.'
"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).
Chapter 1 | Table of Contents | Summary and Notes
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