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Non-Transferable Non-Refillable Bottles

Recently the Lord has opened the eyes of my understanding concerning bottles and filtration systems. The Lord has a lot to say about bottles and vessels for his glory.

Jeremiah 2:12-13 Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Who in this hour has the fear of God?  Who in this hour is horribly afraid of the evils committed by God’s people? For the last three decades Pastors and evangelists have worked with a fevered pitch to remove any semblance of the fear of God from the life of a believer. Shepherds and sheep alike in this hour have no fear of sin, no fear of God’s judgment, and no fear of hell.

Because the fear of God has been removed, there is no more restraint and the Shepherds and the sheep do all that they imagine. Because the fear of God has been removed God has departed and now the people are in great want – desolate. 

Psalm 34:9 O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.

Psalm 31:19 Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!  And instead of God being the fountain of living waters for his Sheep men instead have made for themselves false fountains – false fountains upon which the sheep are to lavish praise and worship, false fountains that are empty and can and will not produce water nor hold water.

Mark 2:22 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.

As it was men’s work to hew broken cisterns so is it the work of men to put new wine in old wineskins. The purpose is that they might gain new life and new converts to the old wineskin so that it might be perpetuated as a venerated long-held tradition. 

When I was a child in early 1960’s soda bottles, milk bottles were all refillable.  You paid a deposit of three to five cents when you purchased the beverage and when you returned the empty bottle you got back your deposit. Then the respective company would collect their bottles take them down to the local plant, hose out the old bottle and then refill it. Within a few days the bottle would be back out on the store shelf again to serve another customer.

These bottles had been used over and over again, and many had been reused so many times that the glass was no longer clear.  These old vessels were so pitted and scratched that the glass had become somewhat opaque obscuring the product the vessel had been created to display.

As a child when I looked at those old scratched and pitted bottles side by side with new clear ones, I would always select a new bottle, somehow believing that the clearer new vessel contained a purer and fresher beverage.

Of wineskins it would seem that it might be hard to discern that the wineskin is new or used one once it has been filled. And if anything the peddler that is preying on the public with used wineskins would be seeking to make quick deals and then get out of Dodge as quick as possible before the skins start exploding and move on to new sales territory. But the nature of the salesmen of what Jesus was speaking of are dealing in the old dried out and cracked doctrines and traditions of men. In order to keep a flow of steady customers   they need to gin things up a bit –  so they add greater and lesser degrees of the wine of the spirit. So they try to control the Holy Spirit allowing just enough to keep their customers coming, but not enough to blow the denominational still.

Romans 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?

It seems that in this day and time that no one wants to be a unique vessel unto the Lord anymore. Instead we spend our every waking moment reading books, listening to tapes, and watching videos. At the subconscious level of our spirit’s we know we are: “Searching, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth.” But at the level of our carnal mind we have conned ourselves into believing that by infusing our soul with massive doses of specific teachings we can create within us the gift or ministry of our choice.  Falsely believing that God is running some kind of a ministry sub-shop where we can build our own spiritual ministry with a little Hagan, a little Wigglesworth, hold the Oral Roberts and extra, extra William Branham.  And despite us receiving the Holy Spirit’s nudging to get us to abandon this destructive path, we keep on searching.  Believing that if we could only find the right Spirit anointed combination of these old dead bottles, that God would somehow be compelled to hand over to us the car keys so we go out on a twenty to thirty year joy ride.  While I’m writing this I am picturing poor starving children from a third world country. Covered in filth, dressed in rags these children were working toxic dumps to feed themselves and their siblings.

Revelation 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

And what were these poor children searching for?  Initially they were told that there were treasures and items of great value hidden among the refuse. They were told that one only had to dig long enough and hard enough, and they will be amply rewarded. But all too soon these children of death, were transformed from being starry-eyed treasure hunters, to scavenging beasts desperately searching for something, anything that they can continue one more day in their squalor. 

So we too dig deep into the dump of old waste doctrines and traditions of men. Spending our every waking moment reading books, listening to tapes, and watching videos. And what are we in search of?  Treasures of corruption, items that carnal men deem as having great spiritual value, rumors of forgotten and discarded spiritual gifts, tales of abandoned vessels just lying out there free for the pickings, and of course the mantles of dead Prophets, Apostles and other Holy men and women.

Our roving eye of lust is out on the pull seeking what other’s have. Our eye of lust wants anything that could grant us recognition of men.  It is the horseleech of Proverbs that cries day and night for more and never is satisfied.  The thing about lust is it is an inflamed emotion, it is not a five or ten-year discipline, it doesn’t want to pay the price to get something, it wants immediate gratification.  Why should we spend precious time praying, fasting, and studying God’s word alone? Why should we pour ourselves out, giving all that we have and all that we are to the Lord? When we can just go over to the dump and get it for free? 

To him that hath an ear to hear let him hear; I’m going to give some very liberating information.  The bottle that God creates within every believer is wholly unique and forged at the foot of the throne of God. This bottle is non-transferable and non-refillable.  So you can save yourself from wasting years of your life trying to get someone else’s bottle. You can spare yourself the disappointment and discouragement while at the same time avoiding giving the devil place in your life when you discover this spiritual Ponzi scheme doesn’t work.

John 10: 1–2 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

If we try to receive some gift, or a ministry or someone else’s mantle by going some other way but through the door (Jesus) we become a thief and a robber.

If you are even contemplating using shortcuts in regards to receiving your calling, gifts of the Spirit, and/or ministry, you are contemplating the most dangerous thing a believer can do. You are indicating to the serpent that you are willing to do anything to get the gift and/or ministry of your choice.  In Genesis the serpent came to Eve offering her a short cut to the promises of God, and we know all too well what happened there. 

Jesus is the door.  Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Jesus is the way the truth and the life. All true Ministry or gifts lead you to the feet of Jesus. If they lead you to the feet of a Minister or a Ministry it is false. How else can you explain the following verse?

Matthew 7:21-23 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

I have heard this repeatedly preached that these people had false gifts. Counterfeit ministry and that these people were agents of the devil.  Jesus was not confused when he spoke, this passage does not require interpretation. If Jesus could give his unregenerate disciples gifts of healing, power to cast out devils and perform miracles, if in the Bible we have examples of those who began their walk close to God and later departed, it is easy to understand that a gift or ministry has to come through the door or through the vine to the braches. If Jesus said I can of my own self do nothing. If Jesus said if I bare witness of myself it is no good. If Jesus said He could only do that which he saw the Father do. . .  how can we expect to do it any other way?  

The Bible repeatedly warns us that: “No thief shall enter in the kingdom.”

So why are we really do this book and tape thing? – These are actually acts of rebellion and disobedience on our part.  For when we know that we should be studying to show ourselves approved, and meditating on his word, for when we know that we should be spending time in prayer and waiting on the Lord, for when we know that we should be humbling ourselves before God and serving one another as we would Christ – We instead push those aside the promptings of the Spirit in order and have a flesh feast while dumpster dining.

Thirty years ago I knew dozens if not hundreds of believers that took on this lifestyle. They gorged themselves on tapes, books and video’s. They were on top of all the latest truths. The sad truth is that not one of them ever came into something solid in God. Many of these believers have long since passed away, while those who still remain are sickly, weak, and a lot more confused and frustrated than if they had never embarked on the route of ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth.

Acts 19:13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.

In our day we have a lot of vagabond Christians who take upon themselves gifts, ministries, and mantles that are not their own so say things like: “In Jesus name whom John Lake teacheth. Or In Jesus name whom Charles Finny teacheth. Or In Jesus name whom Smith Wigglesworth teacheth, or in Jesus name whom Kenneth Hagan teacheth -- be thou whole, be thou cast out, be thou whatever, and nothing happens. I am not knocking the faith message, I am knocking receiving 2nd hand, third hand and fourth hand

truth. Reading a book doesn’t make it so in your life. The word has to be made flesh – you have to experience it, you have to lay at the feet of Jesus to be taught of him. You’re pastor can not do this for you.

Now if that sickness, that demon, or that whatever it is that you want dominion over would speak to you I’ll go out on a limb predict it would say; ”Jesus I know, and John Lake I know, but who are you?”

Why do movements fail?  Because people are pattern conscious.

I Corinthians 12:15-17 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

 Let’s put this in modern terms we all need faith.  We all need working faith. But God made only one unique vessel named Kenneth Hagin. If everyone goes to Rhema and patterns themselves after Kenneth Hagan, as good as that would be, the body of Christ would be diminished by this action. Because the body would be deprived of many otherwise unique vessels with unique operations and gifts of the Spirit that along with the real Kenneth Hagan would greatly edify the body. – But instead we end up with 10,000 Hagan clones most of which are bad knock offs.

Filtering

Lets now move on to the subject of filtering. Most of us sometime in our lives have played the game of telephone. A message is given and passed down a line of people and as the message goes down the line bits are left out, bits are added, and bits are interpreted. And generally the message that comes out at the end bares little resemblance to what was originally spoken.  What happened? Heavy filtering. Filtering to the place where the original message has become of none effect.

Matthew 23:13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

I have a personal confession to make. When I read the Bible, when I pray, when God gives me some revelation and I speak it unto you, it is filtered. As much as I would like to tell you that I am a transparent vessel and add nothing or remove nothing to what God speaks – it still has been filtered. How? I filter it by my eyes, I filter by my understanding, and I filter by my experiences. I emphasize the things that tend to be most meaningful to me, I tend to de-emphasize what is not. This is not to say I am holding the truth in unrighteousness but it goes a long way to explain what John the Apostle said.

That which our eyes have seen that which our hands have handled concerning the word of life that speak we unto you.

John is not speaking of head knowledge as being his final authority of what he is preaching, instead John is speaking of a more vital experience. Until the accepted savior walks in you breaths in you and lives in you he is not truly living in you. He is only a boarder, a temporary lodger.

It is from this experiential standpoint that one needs to teach. Think of this, Peter preached Peter, Paul Preached Paul and John preached John. Paul did not preach Peter and John did not preach Paul.  Did they know something that we don’t?  I think they did. We pollute our souls with books, tapes, and videos continually and we preach everyone except ourselves because we are blind deaf and naked.    

So now lets look at what we are doing when we add the filtering effect to the other people’s teachings that we so readily use.

If my pastor preaches and I take his message and preach it, it has now been filtered twice.  And like in the game of telephone when I speak it to the next person I drop bits that I deem unimportant, I may even add bits that I see that were not part of the original message and I will emphasize and de-emphasize what I see as important. So in most cases because my experience is less than my teacher the message becomes less with my filtering.

Now if we lived in a vacuum this would not be too bad, because in a vacuum there would be little or no loss. But we don’t live in a vacuum instead there are 10,000 voices trying to distort or compete with that single message. And within days, weeks, or months, the words you originally heard or read become hopelessly scrambled as we have already long moved onto other messages and teachings.

We also need to grasp the level of filtering that we are facing when we receive teaching.  If my pastor had been sat under Paul the Apostle the level of filtering that we would receive might not be dire, but you see your pastor did not sit at the feet of Paul.  And he who taught your pastor’s teacher did not, and he that taught him did not.

So that on all to much that we receive as being straight from the throne in actuality has filters on top of filters on top of filters and that all the life of the Spirit has long been filtered out from these generational doctrines of men and generational teachings of men. People no longer understand the teaching’s true significance; people no longer understand the teaching’s true meaning.

You say I don’t know what kind of church you go too but my pastor is a man of God and he gets everything he preaches from the word of God. Well unless your Pastor fell from heaven he was taught of men – he was indoctrinated as all of us were. We all have problems even reading simply what is on the page of the Bible, because all to often the indoctrinations speak louder than we can read. And this is even before the Spirit can enlighten these passages to us –we are another 10 –12 verses down the page.

If this filtering problem exists where is it in the Bible? I’m glad you asked

Mark 4:12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

Now wait a minute I thought it was the will of God that all be saved? Yes it is, but all have a will and all can all to easily believe whatever they want. We can all to easily filter God out. 

Isaiah 42:19-20 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD's servant? Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not.

I have actually heard several people preach on this verse in Isaiah as being a good thing spiritually. But it is a lament of God. This verse is speaking of a spiritual rot that has come through the root and infected the entire plant. This blindness and deafness of the Priesthood of the Watchmen of the Shepherds and of the Prophets is a spiritual pestilence like a plague of locusts that eat and contaminate every green thing among the people of God

Isaiah 6:10-11 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,

The rot of the Pharisees that Jesus condemned with hellfire and brimstone came into the Church 1800 years ago. The speaking of parables was originally reserved for the blind unsaved masses and Pharisees – But it moved into the Church in 90 AD when the Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation. Did it start there? No. It was already evident in the  Epistles some 30 years earlier. But in by the time the problem was written about in the book of Revelation Jesus appears with flames in his eyes and a sword. And he’s threatening to remove almost all to the seven churches of Asia minor. It may be hard to receive but historically all seven of these churches were destroyed. Filtering can be deadly to not only churches, but to the believers within them.

Isaiah 30:11-14 That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon: Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.

The more filtering and the less understanding of the meaning of a message the more there is a tendency to cut corners, preach smooth things and flat change the way and path we are call to walk in. Once the rot settles in, once we are blind we can justify practically anything. Filters are debilitating, filters lead to death and destruction, filters are part and parcel to backsliding movements, instead of bringing you in contact directly with Christ on the throne they are an endless wire snarl that leads you in circles.  And one thing that the devil has on his side as compared to the children of men is time. He can wait for the spark to go out in your life. He can wait for you to wear yourself out. He can wait for frustration to sink in. And when your ready to deal he’ll send out off on some branch line into the middle of nowhere. So we grow older 5, 10, 15, 20 years and we have nothing more than when we first started. And the serpent is just biding his time – because you have been heading down the path of corruption. You’ve planted seeds and watered them and he’s ready to help you with the harvest. Repent! Get off this road. Start praying. Confess your blindness. If you are earnest God will rescue you.

Jeremiah 23:1-2  Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD.

Blind

At the scene of an accident you have ten witnesses, and the police arrive and gather the witnesses and ask them individually what happened and they generally end up with half a dozen different stories. What’s happening?  And bare in mind this is only a single level of filtering – bad filtering but a single level – be picky who you put your trust in for teaching. I recommend Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but that isn’t for all. Others wholly depend on Pastor’s and teachers.  If you find yourself foraging for teaching in tapes, books and video’s it could be a sign that your pastor and/or teacher is not feeding you. You might pray for guidance to be led to a church were you will be fed.

DUMP FEEDING IS VERY UNHEALTHY.  It can permanently injure or kill you over time. Very few can survive dump feeding over a prolonged period of time.   

I tape and book binge because I want people to know by the words that I speak that I am someone in God. If you make yourself known unto God – If you humble yourself before God. If all you do is to glorify the Father and the son. If you become his peculiar treasure, then he will show you forth.   And when that time comes forth  -- you won’t have to speak for yourself. The Father and the Holy Spirit will bear witness of you.

True ministry is made when the Potter has clay that doesn’t argue about the process and results.

We need to pray, fast, read God’s word and seek God until we come into that solid experience that he would have for us. A Holy experience that is completely unique between us and the Lord. And as we walk in that experience, that gift, or that ministry, as we continue to hold it before the Lord and offer it to the Lord our life and ministry becomes our worship. A sacrifice that is wholly pleasing unto the Lord.

To our lustful eyes, reading books and listening to tapes and watching Video’s is far easier and far more exciting than praying, fasting, reading God’s word and seeking God until he is found of us. We try to be spiritual barnacles and ride off of someone else’s walk. We try to leech off of the life of Christ in someone else, and in so doing we end up very limited. 

This generation of hearer’s with itching ears; truly believe by pouring greater and greater amounts of volume into our eye gates and ear gates we will receive more than those who spend a lifetime fasting, praying and seeking God in the prayer closet. Further we have developed an even more hideous doctrine, that by sheer force of will we can select any of the promises of God we desire, and ignore everything that we don’t like. We of this self gratifying generation believe that we can demand our way to healing and prosperity.

I am acutely aware that there is one who is more than willing to grant you the fleshly desires of your heart – the subtle salesman of Genesis. He won’t ask you to trade your salvation as some have supposed. He won’t ask you to compromise your beliefs. At issue is your pleasure and your corruption. Once you are turned out of the way of the path that leads to life, once you are one the self-serving path of corruption it leads you to more and more corruption all the while eating your soul out from within you.  Few after tasting the sweet fruits of the Lust of the flesh of the lust of the eyes and the love of the world ever want to turn back. Because they get all they want when they want it and they have it now in the flesh.

But the path of life – the highway of holiness is diametrically opposed to such lusts and desires.  Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.

See the credo of the flesh is seek ye first all these things and when you have all these things God will have to use you.

If you want to walk with God, you want to experience his power – let him create that unique bottle in you at his feet. If you want to learn of him rid yourself of all these filters and he will give you profound truths that can not be found in any book. 

If you give unto the Lord and to those who can not reward you, it shall be given unto you.

 In our current level of experience we can only: 

We commit random acts of Prayer

We commit random acts of Praise and Worship

We commit random acts of Fasting

We commit random acts of Repentance

We commit random acts of Denial of Self

We commit random acts of Giving

We commit random acts of Faith

We commit random acts of Testimony

But as a full and complete vessel unto the Lord you will move beyond random acts of prayer –to a life of prayer.

As a full and complete vessel unto the Lord you will move beyond random acts of praise and worship –to your life becoming praise and worship.

I think you can see that God has so much more for you. 

We are told that people are too busy today – they don’t have time

Sin is exhausting.  Death working in your members is exhausting. So we wake up exhausted can’t pray in the morning, we eat breakfast we can’t speak to God there because we are eating, we drive to work we can’t speak to God there because were driving, we arrive at work and we can’t speak to God there because we are working, we get legal breaks we can’t speak to God ton them because we’re on break or on lunch. We get back to work we drive home and we can’t speak to God because we’re driving. We arrive home we’re exhausted from work. So we sit and vegetate we can’t pray because we are resting, We eat dinner we can’t pray because we’re eating again we sit down now to really relax either watching TV a Video listening to radio or a tape or curl up with a book – so many parents and we can’t pray. Many Christian Parents then complain that their children need attention with homework and want attention so they can’t pray then they tuck them in bed and the parent fights of sleep with entertainment as long as possible and goes to bed – they can’t pray their because they are too tired and fall asleep. And the cycle begins again.

Now did I make the above scenario up?  No.

Surely you have overstated it no one person could go through a day like that. This is the exact testimony of dozens and dozens and dozens of believers that I heard with my own ear.

Surely this is the testimony of someone just saved or backslidden. No word of God, Spirit filled “On Fire” believer would be so carnal and crass. No. This is unfortunately the exact testimony from the best and the brightest in many churches I have been over the years.  These people are our song leaders, choir members, deacons, Sunday school teachers, and Bible study teachers. There are the people that everyone looks up to as being spiritual among you.

How dare I suggest this? I suggest this because these people have said these things in my hearing in a variety of fundamentalist and Pentecostal Churches located all over the U.S. These people were confessing their carnality and indifference toward God. So finish the story and tell me that they repented, saw the light and became a beacon on a hill.  I can’t because that didn’t happen.

Recently a Pentecostal the Pastor not just a Church pastor but the second highest-ranking person in Alaska for that particular denomination spoke on prayer in church.  I was there for an hour he spoke of his personal spiritual inadequacy’s.  He spoke that for decades in the ministry he did not know how to pray.  And that a unequipped Pastor he sought out people he thought were spiritual, and he would invite them out to his church and had them stay in his house for a week at a time that he could see how they prayed. He would question them, though he didn’t say it, I could read his disappointment as those who seemed to have had something in fact had little or nothing. – He had seen behind the curtain of the great OZ and what he was really testifying to the Church was unspeakable. He was reporting that he along with the leaders of his denomination were deaf, blind, and naked, and wretched.  He affirmed that like the false prophets that he and the other shepherds only spoke the smooth things the people want to hear. He affirmed that he and his fellow watchmen upon the walls were blind and deaf and were unable to give any warning to the people of their charge.

He spoke that he had searched for years on how too pray – the words that he spoke were empty and lifeless. And then he said I finally decided that I knew how to pray all along. 

He gave up seeking and accepted that the nothing he had was the fullness of what God had in a prayer life. He read books, he referred to some. He listened to tapes, and he saw video taped meetings. He is a featured speaker in conferences. Yet he is a white washed sepulcher filled with dead men’s bones.   

His experience is exactly mirrors most believers experience. He saw in the word or sensed that there was something more in prayer – a relationship a reality and just like us. But he didn’t want to pay the cost, so he tried to enter in some other way than the door.

He had gotten a pastorate that way, he had gotten into the number two position in his denomination that way, but none of that will work with God.  God did not have pity on his congregation and fill him with Gifts and spiritual ministry that he would meet their needs. The members in his church are starved for life and truth from the true vine, but since this branch is barely grafted in the vine the grapes they produce are tiny dried out and flavorless – the grapes or sheep are lean and starved.

So this Pastor to get God’s life some other way reading books, tape sets, going to seminars, and looking for a gifted ministry to hand it to him on a silver platter. But in all this he was being disobedient and rebelling trying to get in the door of a prayer life by some other way.  The man was disappointed, he became disillusioned, he then accepted being a child of death. No longer a treasure hunter he became a scavenging beast searching for something, anything that they could continue one more day in his squalor.  It the meeting he spoke of prayer being hard, and that prayer required time. He offered no verses to instill faith in his hearers, he did not speak of any prayer victories in regards to himself or any believers.

He then opened it up to church members and it should be of no surprise to you that three to five of the members spoke almost word for word that they had no time to pray and it was hard and they were getting no where. – To this the Pastor offered no correction or encouragement. Two testified that they were praying two minutes a day in small gasps during work and that had revolutionized their walks. The pastor smiled and said praise God.

30 years ago in a survey in a leading Christian magazine it was revealed that believers on average were praying two and a half minutes a day and that Pastors -- the guy your paying for to be full time in the presence of God that he call do all your praying and hearing from God was only praying on average seven minutes a day. 

 With that all said now I still have to give you a does of reality 100 years ago people worked slavish work intensive jobs for 60, 80, and 100 hours a week. Any yet these people still found hours to pray and read the word together as a family daily and there came great revival.  After WWII the workweek was shortened to 40 hours and the menial backbreaking work that people once had to do was done increasingly by machines, even in that day people still prayed hard and sought God and there came great revival.  Today most work in air-conditioned comfort sitting at desks and leaning on counters having the lightest possible workloads in world history and no one has time to pray or seek God.

How is this possible? Well, 30 years ago I heard a survey on radio about entertainment that people time for personal entertainment had risen from the 1960’s – 1970’s dramatically with the coming of TV. They closed the survey with this revealing statement that what once was considered frivolous entertainment was now considered a necessity.  Since that time VCR’s have come into every home, Cable TV has come into every home, Nintendo and electronic gaming systems have come into every home, Personal Computers have come into every home, and now the Internet.

It has been observed within the last ten years that people work harder at play and entertainment than at work. And Christians work a lot harder at tapes books and Christian entertainment then at working out their own salvation with fear and trembling

This generation has truly become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.

I fear for the church. I fear for believers. God is fed up with this entire movement. God is standing with a rod of iron at the ready to smash this ungodly idol that has been called Fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, Evangelicalism, and Charismaticism. He is going to grind it to dust and let it be as chaff in the four winds. God will no longer revive this festering corpse –it is restoration of what was once delivered unto the early church or nothing.  

We are not playing a game here. We are in the fight of our life. Do you want to be a unique vessel unto the Lord? Do you have a deep yearning cry in your spirit that I might know him?  Then separate your self from these contaminated filtered sources, leave the doctrinal dump, beg God to cleanse your soul and spirit and seek him as you never have before.

If you do He will be found of you. And . . .   

Isaiah 64:4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.

1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.