The Church
What Is It?
A book by Joseph, Apostle of Jesus Christ
AN APOSTLE’S JOURNEY
Apostle Joseph
1958 - 2010
1 - The Fear of the Lord AN APOSTLE’S JOURNEY WHY DID I NEED A SAVIOR? Plenty of reasons, even though my story starts way before I was born with my parents and their parents, I was around four years old when my first memories of life already needed a savior. Looking in on our family anyone would think we were an American Success Story; dad worked for a local merchant and finally purchased his own store, mom worked with bookkeeping in the medical field and then at the store, my brothers were rising to the top of school, leading in sports, music and drama and all of us eventually working at the family store. The two things that were the common hub in our family were drama, with school and community theatre and “The Store.” It was great! It seemed our family had more in common and more time together than most of my friends. So what was the problem, why would I need a Savior? Secretes and being terrified of death. SECRETES Even after I turned 50 years old the secretes of my family were still unfolding. Even my own. Abuse was first defined as the misuse of something like drinking to much alcohol, or a horse trainer that pushed his animal too hard to win a race. Now the word abuse has taken a much darker meaning in our society with reference to violence or sexual acts committed on children. This is where the secretes start in my life. With both my parents working and my brothers in school I needed someone to take care of me. This is where my abuser enters the picture and this was when I first realized I needed a Savior. From the age of four to six and around a hundred events, I had been warped in my early stages of sexual development to say the least but it was the shaming secrete I couldn’t tell anyone that continued to rot away inside of me. This abuse seemed to be like a dark shadow always in my life yet hidden from everyone else. I seemed to be living two lives; a happy little boy and yet a powerless slave. I began to seek for truth, I wanted to only be the happy little boy. I remember being five years old and getting up early on Sunday mornings to watch our black and white TV. The only programming on at that hour and in that day was this man dressed in a suit that would pray for people. He would start the show by preaching very loudly, like he had to yell so I could hear it all-the-way in Kansas through the TV set. He would hold up his Bible in the air and shake it back and forth and tell of the amazing power of God to heal and deliver people of demons. Then he would call the sick people to come forward and walk up or wheel their wheelchairs up a little ramp where he would put his hand on their head, pray, quote the Bible and yell at the devil. People would throw their crutches down or jump up out of their wheelchairs and start crying and dancing around the room screaming Jesus, Jesus! I needed a Savior, could this Jesus be him? TERRIFIED OF DEATH I can remember to this day literally pulling out my hair? I was between 8 and 10 years old and I was terrified of death. Not necessarily of my own mortality but everyone else around me. I would be in bed at night next to my brother and have panic attacks thinking about death. I would pull clumps of hair out of my head. I would start crying, slip out of bed and slither downstairs to mom, for two years she would ask me what the problem was but I never told her, I just said I didn't feel good (which I guess was true). I would then curl-up next to her on the love seat and fall asleep. I couldn't tell her I was terrified of death because I didn't think she knew that one day she would die. I was surrounded by death, first my little sister died but no one talked about what happens after death. I was told that our German Shepherd we gave to the antique dealer at the end of town was chasing a leaf across the highway and was hit by a car. I turned 5 when our new puppy got loose ran across the street and as I called the puppy back, it was coming to me and a speeding car flying down our hill hit and killed it. Plus my grandma took me to several open casket funerals before I was even seven. To add hopelessness to being terrified, in science class I was taught that the earth's orbit was getting closer and closer to the sun and that one day the earth would just be sucked into the sun and be destroyed. My fear was that no one on this earth would even be remembered. We are born, we survive, we die and then nothing. No one remembers us, we are just gone. What a waste I thought in my child mind. I needed a Savior and it was these major thoughts (shameful secrets and being terrified of death) that DROVE me to find truth.THE FEAR OF THE LORD Accepting Jesus as my Savior and making Him my Lord when I was fourteen was and is the most important event in my life, yet it was not my first encounter with God. I remember the first time I actually talked to God and he answered me. I was around ten years old playing in my backyard on a warm but overcast day. I had three older brothers but I was very comfortable playing alone with my toy cars, trucks and Army men. Often I would make up my play stories and talk out loud or at times I would just sing my own songs, usually about cowboys on the range. That day as I was sitting on the ground, I looked up in the sky and asked God this question, “God, are you really there?” The next thing that happened was answer enough for this ten year old. A small hole in the overcast sky parted and a beam of sun light came shining straight down in my backyard and landed on me. From that moment on I knew that God was. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…” “…for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Hebrews 11:6
Oh, from the age of ten, I believed that God was there but it took the next four years to figure out how He was involved in my life and me in His. It came at the expense of almost landing in jail. (In these four years not only did I have the shame of sexual abusive secretes in my life, by this time I had already added nine years of new events on my own, mainly in the area of pornography). At the age of fourteen three of my teenage buddies and I got into some mischief in our local town that put us on parole to our parents and the restriction of the four us not able to be together until we were eighteen. It was in the midst of this court case that I finally gave in to a barrage of invitations by a young man in band class who had invited me to his church building for over a year. I cut a deal with him; that if I went to his church building one time that he would never talk to me about Jesus again. He agreed. I went to this church building once and thought they were all pretty “nuts” but I must say my curiosity was piqued when the woman in the seat behind me, wearing a long gray dress and her hair in a bun, stood up and starting speaking boldly in a language that I had never heard before. That lady made the hair on the back of my neck, stand at attention. Ok, she “freaked-me-out” but she did have my attention, so much so, that I asked to come back. I could not believe what was coming out of my mouth, I asked to come back? Not only did I come back, I came with three other youth. This second time I was ready for the “freaky lady” but I wasn’t ready for the sermon the preacher preached, entitled; “A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways…” James 1:8
The message was about “a choice”; making a decision to follow Jesus and have direction and purpose in my life or remain passive and continue to fear death and live in the evil shadow of shameful secrets. After the message this preacher invited everyone who wanted to pray to have Jesus become their Lord to walk forward. There went the three other youth and then me. I learned later that the church folks were “betting” on the other three youth but not me. Ok, here was the picture; I was in the middle of a court case where I was to be sentenced by the judge, the following week. I knew I was busted, I knew I had disappointed my dad and mom, I knew I was in big trouble and I needed help. I needed a Savior and I needed someone else in charge of my life, because at almost fifteen years old, I had messed myself up pretty bad. There was a white haired man at the front by the alter, who knelt down on his knees with me. He told me that my past life was like a chalkboard and that Jesus was erasing the sins of my past as we prayed. Well, the rest of that day, I have already written about in the opening paragraph. Oh, the part about the chalkboard being erased? “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” 2 Corinthians 5:17
No jail time just parole and the understanding of grace and mercy and the Lord’s eraser. The other three youth? I was ministering to them a few years later because for some reason, their commitment to Jesus just didn’t seem to stick. I then realized something about myself; I am an all or nothing type of guy. When I make decisions I “jump in with both feet”. I give it everything I have. Even though I have failed many times in my life, I am a commitment maker. My word is good. This is one good pattern that has remained in my life to this day. HEALED OF THE TERROR OF DEATH AND SHAME OF SECRETS? WAIT! I can hear you asking; “Did the shame of the secrets in my life and being terrified of death leave me when I accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior?” NO, but here is what did happen: When I confessed my secrets to Jesus, I knew that the abuse in my life was not my fault, and the feeling of always feeling “dirty” was removed from me, I felt “clean” for the first time in my life. When I confessed to Jesus that I had compounded my sexual problems with taking comfort in pornography and terrible lustful thoughts and as I asked to be saved from these, I WAS! I knew I had been forgiven! When I confessed my terror of death? I then understood the truth of the Bible that explains that there are only two paths concerning death and what we do on this earth determines our eternity. God is perfect and the only way to enter Eternal Heaven is to be perfect or be forgiven of my imperfections and enter with Jesus the only one who is perfect! When I confessed Jesus as my Lord (the boss of my life) I gained a confidence that when my physical body breathes its last breath, I will be able to say; “I AM WITH JESUS, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD AND THE SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE WORLD! WOW! I said that I was not healed of the terror of death and shame of secrets because it took me several years to break habits and to renew my mind to this new way of thinking, It did not feel common to be this happy and free so I ended-up sabotaging this freedom almost daily. After six months of this new life, I felt compelled to know more. Not just an urge but a zeal came over me, like a treasure hunter or one with “gold fever.” It was at that point when I prayed and asked God if I could know Him even deeper, I experienced a new dimension of life and an inner strength for the very first time. Today I know this experience as the power of the Holy Spirit or the power of the Spirit of God (Luke 11:1, Acts 1:8, 2:4, 19:2,6, 1 Corinthians 14:2,4,14,15,18). Oh yes, I too was speaking in another language that I couldn’t understand and I suppose I was as “freaky” as the lady behind me with her hair in a bun the first day I entered a church building.
It was also at that point when I knew something was different in me. Oh, I had always been a leader in school, in the neighborhood and even the leader of the little gang that got me into trouble but this was different. I noticed that children, youth and even adults wanted to be around me. Some who had been walking with Jesus for years, looked at me for answers and leadership. I “felt” Jesus leading me to lead His people. While being discipled in this ministry, I used my talents of playing the trumpet and drama. I didn’t understand that there was competition between denominations at the time, so I held play tryouts for a Christmas play, just like I had done in our community theatre. I invited everyone. There were youth I cast in the different plays that were not born again, and at the end of the performance, a call was given for anyone to come and give their life to Christ, these kids were the first to respond and walk forward for prayer! I also ministered in song with three other youth. Ok, the three others ministered in song and I just sang along but I loved the Lord with all my heart and I guess that was what ministered to the people. Our group “Shalom” traveled from church building to church building encouraging the body of Christ the best we knew how. RELATIVES AND THE FAMILY SYSTEM Man did I ever rock the “family boat“! Anything but a radical sold-out “born again” Christian, let-a-lone a Bible Preacher. Get this picture. I am the fourth son, now fourteen years old and my folks are a little tired. They have already been through the teenage years of my three older brothers while trying to maintain some kind of reputation in our little town so that “the store“ can prosper and the bills can be paid. The police came to the front door with a subpoena for me to appear in court. I sank in despair when I saw the disappointed look come across my dad’s face. All I ever wanted to do was to please him, I was the youngest, I was spoiled with everything a child would ever need or want in life and now I brought disgrace to my dad. I embarrassed him as a son. A few months later, after the court case was done, I asked to go to a church building on Sundays with a new friend. Ok, Sundays at my house meant you either slept in and rested or got up at 4 A.M. and went fishing with dad. Only grandma and her sister went to the church building. After going for a couple of weeks my dad asked me if I was really going to the church building or was I doing something illegal. I deserved that as my dad’s trust level was a little low at this point. You didn’t have to be in our family for long to know my folks hated religion, so I did not tell them of my spiritual experience with Jesus besides I didn’t feel like I knew enough about the Bible to give them a proper explanation. They just knew I was going to a church building. One night I came home from a youth rally at about 2 AM and my folks were still up and very drunk, this is when my dad said that I spent so much time at the church building that I belonged to the church and was no longer his son, no longer a member of the family. That night my dad disowned me. Although it hurt, it was true, I belonged to Jesus, my Lord and Savior. It was also the first time I gave my mom and dad the salvation message. As my dad cursed God I told him that the Bible said that eventually every person will bow down before Jesus and know that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We can accept Him now by faith in the Bible or we will bow our knee after death when we are face to face with Him. I told my dad that it would be better for him if he bowed before he died. “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Mom was a little different in her beliefs, even though she didn’t go for formal religion (we didn’t even go to a church building for Easter or Christmas) she was a reader and driven by her own secrete demons to seek some kind of truth. Well it seemed that her search ended in a big bucket with a little bit of everything which left her with the philosophy of passive tolerance. She was true to her way as she supported each son in our own extremely different life paths. When I told her I felt “called” by Jesus to be a preacher of the Bible, she supported me and encouraged to be the best. She told me she thought the best would be like Billy Graham. I idolized my oldest brother; he was so smart, a great athlete, creative in drama, had a cool Mustang and his friends would throw me through the air and play catch with me as the ball. He became the technical director of our fine arts building and I got to hang-out with him on stage and up on the “catwalks” to hang spot lights. He was cool and when I got to be with him, I was cool! But I remembered one night when the store was open late and he and my other brothers were talking about God and his philosophy: “God is not real; he said, it is just a nice story for weak people who cannot deal with the truth of death. I kept my mouth shut.” The second brother asked me, when I was young, if I knew the “Pledge of Allegiance” and “The Lord’s Prayer”. When I admitted I didn’t know the prayer he taught it to me so I would not be embarrassed if I was at a meeting where I might need to recite it. It seemed as if he knew I was interested in Jesus because one day, we got these great hooded bath robes in at the store and as I was walking through he was half hidden behind a display, wearing the robe with hood up and the side of his bearded face showing. When I noticed him, I was so startled I almost fell to the ground, he knew that I thought he was Jesus. I found out later in life that my last brother closest in age to me was also molested by my abuser. This brother was always trying to protect me from everything, even about embarrassment. He was all about good appearance and image so no one would make fun of me and no one would make fun of him because of me. He rode me so hard about dressing nice, combing my hair, brushing my teethe, and talking “right”. When I invited my whole family to come to my water baptism, my grandmother (who prayed for me and my family forever) was the only relative that showed. Then right after the baptism I had play practice and when I arrived my third brother scolded me and sarcastically asked why my hair was all wet. Jesus, facing similar problems with His earthly relatives made a huge defining statement: ”Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." Mark 3:35 I found myself slipping away from my relatives. They had no idea who I was and didn’t really seem to care. Soon I would leave my “Hometown” in search for another.
2 - THE EARLY YEARS - THE ZEAL OF THE LORD (2 Kings 19:31) At the age of 19, still living at home, working at a factory and carrying 20 credit hours at the local Junior College, the Pastor I was serving brought me under his wing for ministry training and gave me the title of youth Pastor. I was given “a Christian workers Permit” through this denomination which legally allowed me to marry and bury people. My primary ministry was with the youth. The youth group was a large group for a small town and for a small congregation for that matter. I knew that most of the youth in this ministry were raised in it, their parents were followers of Jesus and so these youth just grew up following Jesus also, or so I thought. My first expectations came crashing down pretty quick as I experienced what a “spirit of jealousy” (Numbers 5:14, Acts 13:45) could do to a person and a group. When I gave my life to Jesus, to the best of my ability I gave it all. I held back nothing. With little knowledge of the scriptures, great zeal and a willingness to do what ever the Lord Jesus asked; I “jumped in with both feet.” But many of the youth whom I was to be leading turned jealous of me and tried “mutiny.” They called a private meeting and invited me to come. I sat there as they called me everything except a child of God. The Spirit of the Lord started me on a journey with some very tough education.
I can also recall some of the thousands of blessings that crossed my path in these early years and most of them revolved around people. People over sixty years old. There were about twenty of these old saints that helped shape my life. Saints that prayed for me, prophesied over me and supported the ministry that the Lord had started me in. When I was licensed to preach one of the Elders came and anointed me with oil and prayed over me with these words to the people; “We will no longer call this young man Joseph, but rather “Brother Joseph.” This was a great honor as I knew this Elder praying was a true man of God. Not only did this Elder anoint me with oil, he and his wife made an investment in my spiritual life in four other specific areas. The first was that He and his wife ministered at three nursing homes in our town. On Sunday mornings they would go to all three, holding services with singing, prayer and preaching. They took me along and had me lead the singing, his wife played the piano and the Elder would preach. After a couple of weeks, the Elder told me that he wanted me to preach every other week, starting the following week. This was the beginning of Jesus using me in preaching to the people. I loved preaching in the nursing homes! I loved the people. As a matter of fact I started questioning Jesus about the effectiveness of what I understood was the church, compared to the move of His Spirit in these nursing homes. Second, this man took me through the book of Revelation as I would go to his home week after week at The Town House, a new senior community living high rise in our town. Now I didn’t understand a thing he was talking about until twenty years later but believe-you-me, I sat there and listened to every word he said, believing that someday, all of these puzzle pieces would fit into a picture. He and his wife also started a Bible study in the Town House, where I was a guest many times. Remember the young man in band class who invited me to the church building? He and I started a radio ministry called “Inner Man Ministries” and we had our first live meeting from the Town House! Third, this Elder also helped with the first demon possessed person I met. A couple of us were in the church building late one night and a demon possessed girl from my school walked in. The Pastor asked us to clear out one of the Sunday school rooms, all except one chair. I now realize that we spent five hours in there, praying the most immature prayers I have ever heard in all my life. My mom finally called the church building at 5 AM and told me to get home. Just as I was leaving our Elder came walking in. I missed it! Five minutes later the girl was set free. Fourth, when I told this Elder and his wife that I was leaving town to go to Bible College, they begged me not to go. I didn’t tell them our Pastor was in a scandal and I couldn’t stay but they perceived that I was determined to go and they gave me some of the best council I have ever had. Words of wisdom that kept my spirit fresh to the Lord as I entered a religious institution of education. Even now, long after this couple has gone to be with the Lord, this wisdom has shaped my understanding of the church, the ministry and my gifting. Visiting one day with an old widow in the ministry, she related her perspective to the day the Elders lay hands on me and prayed. She told me that as the men were praying she saw an angel. The angel had his back to her as she was sitting in the congregation so she asked the Lord why. Why the angel’s back was to her? The Lord replied to this sister that it wasn’t her angel, it was Joseph’s angel. She told me she saw the angel standing behind me and he was so big that he had to bend way over the top of me just to fit in the building (Mat. 4:6, Heb. 13:2).
Other saints of God would come down to the front of the church building on Sunday evenings and pray with us youth. They would get down on their knees and pray, cry, laugh, prophesy and hug our necks. Praying with us for an hour or so seemed as if only minutes had passed. Even with all of the contradictions in the church, these times at “the alters” made up for every hardship that had happened. That was until my Pastor was caught in a scandal and as it started getting “political” I decided to leave this ministry and my small town and my relatives and go to Bible College. It seemed like my only positive step. Comparing this event to the life of Paul the Apostle this was probably my first shipwreck (2 Corinthians 11:25).
3 - THE LIFE OF A DIGGER My Christian walk, even to this day, can be likened to that of a “digger.” Not a digger for gold, silver or precious stone, because what I have found is more precious than these. Not even a digger of history or for my “roots” although I have discovered some rich knowledge of the past and wonderful “roots” that have held me pretty stable in my life. No, none of these. The treasure I have been digging for has been the ways of God and a deeper relationship with Him.
I have discovered that even though God has gone to great lengths to reveal Himself to mankind, He has also hidden many things about Himself in mysteries. Some mysteries can be studied out in God’s Holy Word to discover “the hidden manna” (Revelation 2:17) that is hidden in the layers of not just the written word but in “the Spirit of His Word” (2 Corinthians 3:6)! One of the hardest things for a “digger” is that some mysteries are “time released” and cannot be found before God’s appointed time to release them or for us to understand them. Then there are other mysteries that cannot be taught, learned or studied out, no matter how hard one digs; these mysteries are revelations. There is nothing you can do to dig these up or out. A revelation is up to our sovereign God and His eternal plan. There are times when He just pulls back the curtain and says; “Take a look at this my son.” Wow! I would ask; “Lord what would you have me do with this?”
It was these times with the Lord that He showed me things: things about Him, me and His wonderful people. It was also times like this when the Lord would reveal the darker things that warred against His people, like systems, traps and the deception of Satan and false leaders. It was hard to sit at the feet of Jesus to finish my training with all of this understanding in my heart. I wanted to fight, preach and minister to set His people free but found out that I wasn’t equipped and I was still struggling and failing to overcome past addictions and un-renewed thinking. BIBLE COLLEGE I had already spent three years of my Christian life with the best teachers my town had to offer, and dug as deep as I could with the tools available. Off to our denomination’s Bible College I went. I hoped to be equipped to dig deeper into the things of God. After two years at college I did study about men and women who hit the miracle waters of God, but it seemed that the latest well had dried up some sixty years before and it didn’t look like there was any current move of God. Then it hit me, I wasn’t being taught how or where to dig, my teachers just taught me denominational history and only how to move old sand around. I was frustrated but not stopped, because I still heard the voice of the Spirit of Jesus saying; “dig, dig, dig!” I just didn’t know where. The same time that I was making spiritual decisions in life I also struggled with the most freighting natural decision of all, choosing a mate (Genesis 2:18). I was hoping that finding the right mate for me would give me someone to experience the presence of God together, dig together, minister together and even help in this area of warped sexual thinking. Oh, we were together for almost twenty-one years but it almost caused me to be disqualified from the race (1 Corinthians 9:27). I will explain later about the cost of the high calling of Jesus (Philippians 3:14).
I could not accept that what I was experiencing in God was all that there was. I knew there had to be an underground spiritual river of God that was the source of all that we could physically see above. I searched for “older ones” who had already started digging and tried to team-up with them. As I did, I discovered one of two things; either they got fearful of my fresh zeal, or I could see that they had strayed from their original goal of wanting the powerful presence of God and settled for making a business out of digging (basic religion). After trying to join with five different teams and seemingly hitting nothing but the traditions of men, the Spirit of God confirmed that I needed to see the pitfalls that each of these teams fell into for my own training, before He could show me where to dig myself. I still didn’t realize the cost of a digging expedition like this but I was about to find out. After college, I knew that I was getting closer to the mainstream of God. I was experiencing a powerful presence of the Lord in my life almost daily. The wisdom that He was showing me about people and the system called the “church” was very frightening. I had already crossed the point of no compromise concerning the ministry of God but I still had to learn how to drop off old personal baggage that was hindering me from breaking through to this next level of His presence. One team I had worked with was a voluntary ministry position back in Kansas, building a youth ministry and drama team, at the same time, teaching gymnastic lessons to pay my bills. Little did I know the minister I was working with had a secret agenda of him leaving his congregation and dumping it on me so he could move on to “bigger and better things.” Not that anything was wrong with these people, they were great! It is just that Jesus did not call me to pastor them. This was probably my second shipwreck (2 Corinthians 11:25).
4 - GOLD MINING - FROM ALASKA TO CALIFORNIA Back to college I went, transferring my credits from the Bible College to a secular four-year school. Instead of graduating, I went with a man from the ministry I was attending, to Alaska to mine for gold so I could finance my own ministry in Branson Missouri. Did I have an overdeveloped need to build or what? You probably guessed, I went broke in Alaska; could this possibly be my third shipwreck (2 Corinthians 11:25)? I got a job in San Diego California at a relative’s seafood restaurant as a food prep, moved up to a cook and was offered manager within a year. I was honored but was bent on conquering this “religious system” that had chewed me up and spit me out three times now. Next, the ministry I was attending in San Diego had just lost their youth pastor over a scandal and moved him to another state. This system does weird things like this. They hired me on as their new youth pastor, drama leader and a sectional leader over 25 other youth groups in the area. Here I go again!
It was in San Diego that four important things stand-out in my mind, yea I say five. First, an Angel of the lord spoke to me in a dream and told me that my wife and I would have a baby. This may not sound too unusual but we had not been able to conceive for six years. To make sure that I knew this was going to be a miracle of God the Angel of the Lord came to me in a dream a second time with the same message. A miracle daughter was born into this world just as the angel had spoken. The second thing was that I was approached, now my second time, by a demon possessed person. This time it was a man and I prayed but the demon did not come out. The demon actually made fun of me. This was my second failure of trying to cast out a demon. The third thing was that I started organizing youth camps. These camps were so powerful, yet when I brought the youth back home the experiences at camp seemed to quickly fade. This disturbed me so much that I continued to press into Jesus, asking Him about this thing called church. I also started baptizing new believers in water, many new believers. This is something that has remained a vital part of my ministry for many years (Mark 16:16).
The fifth thing that radically changed my ministry was the revelation that if the adults and parents don’t have order in the home then my ministry to the youth, their children, was not impossible but very, very limited. I started holding parent youth seminars talking about the basics of communication, honor and respect. I then trained youth leaders to take over my teaching schedule of Jr. High, Senior High, College/Career and the drama team. My ministry shifted from ministering to youth, to ministering to youth leaders and parents. I am now teaching adults. AN OLD, NEW WAY, HOUSE-TO-HOUSE (Acts 20:20)
My Senior Pastor retired after a few years and in this denomination, when the Senior Man leaves, the whole staff has to leave so the new man can bring in his own staff. I moved my family to Spokane Washington to help a friend pioneer a Christian work that he had started about a year before. I was twenty-seven years old, and he was younger than I, yet he was preaching a message with power and I wanted to be a part of it. To make the transition, nine families supported me financially for a year. This ministry was where I learned to pray the prayer of faith, to stand in healing and to experience people receiving the same power of the Holy Sprit that I had. I started House-to-House ministry groups and the Lord blessed me with a second child. Things are looking pretty good at this point until the time that Jimmy Baker with the PTL Club and Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, hit the news with their world-wide scandals. It caused such a ripple in the religious world that my financial support went to zero. I went to Spokane with the arrangement between my new Pastor and I; that if I raised my own support for a year and helped build this new congregation up, then the ministry would pay my salary from that point on. I still had five months to go, so by faith I lived on credit cards. Ok, stop judging me, I was now 28 years old, expecting my second child and I made a very bad mistake. Five months passed then six, then seven and when I finally had the “guts” to ask my Pastor about the salary, I was accused of not having enough faith. With bills and credit card payments “sky high” I filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy where you pay the debt back over three years. It was also at this point when my wife threatened to separate from me, if I didn’t separate from the full time staff-ministry. I separated from ministry.
5 - FIVE HOUR COMMUTE TO SEATTLE My dad raised me in business and I have always been able to round up a job, that is, until Spokane Washington. I then learned the path of Jesus moving His ministers around by drying up a brook (1 Kings 17:7). I commuted five hours away to the Seattle area as a manager for U-Haul. I did this for several months until I was able to move my family. I was ship wrecked once again, living with a Christian family, sleeping in a U-Haul motor home in their back yard, waiting for the birth of my son. I praise the Lord for this wonderful family making our van payment for four months in a row, letting us eat their food, praying for us, taking us to their up-beat ministry group of six thousand people and every Monday morning, the husband would hand me a twenty dollar bill. He would say; “It is not good for a man to go to work without some money in his pocket.” This was my hour of training in humility. It had been really hard for me to receive up to this point in my life; I always wanted to be the giver. Oh, my pride was broken as I learned to receive.
I was frustrated with not teaching, preaching and being in the “full-time” ministry but I did stay with U-Haul for almost a year. Then I couldn’t take it anymore, I was bursting with creative energy! How many ways can a guy clean and organize a U-Haul rental center anyway? Just because I trained my crew to be nice to the clients and suggest they buy moving boxes along with their rental truck, our store went from $24,000 a month to $52,000 a month. I was working 75 hours a week and being paid $5.09 per hour. I remember asking the president of Washington U-Haul for a raise and he told me I would be making more money than him. Time for me to make a change before I blew-up with everyone around me getting hurt. I started my own business of hiring myself out for loading and unloading U-Haul trucks. Knowing all of the managers in the area plus another eighty apartment managers, the business boomed and my own moving company was off the ground. I printed my business cards, moved into an apartment just in time for my second miracle child to be born; now I had a daughter, a son, a new business that I established out of nothing and things were looking up! I even started a Bible study. HOUSE-TO-HOUSE AGAIN I also stayed with the up-beat ministry and became one of 250 “Home Meetings” in the area. We would have around 17 adults and 17 children in our apartment cabana every week for ministry and fellowship. This meeting continued for about three years and became very influential in our complex. We had great favor with the management team. They allowed us to have a food donation box in the office and when it was full they would call us. I would then ask if they knew of anyone in the complex who needed help and off we would go (Matthew 5:16). We would get calls of people needing a ride to a doctor’s appointment or the 3 A.M. suicide call. We began Pastoring this community with the climax being a block party; clowns, hotdogs, comedian, Christian music and testimonies. Five years total in this community experiencing the favor of God and man (Proverbs 3:4).
I was called into a meeting with the head of the “Home Meeting Department” of the ministry I was attending and he told me that he was retiring and asked if I would take his place. When I asked why me, he told me two reasons. First, I had the same kind of spirit as he did. Second, he was being forced to leave his position and told the senior man that he would “blackmail” him if he didn’t give the position to me. Will I forever follow scandals?? This ministry had about 130 full-time paid employees of various departments and I had a pretty good relationship with most of them: and knew that most of them were hurting. My wife thought because of the size of the organization that it would be “more secure” than places I had worked before, so she gave an “ok” to reenter the ministry. I had already perceived that this ministry had some pretty big “dark spots” but I accepted the assignment as God’s will in my life. I enrolled my children in the ministry’s Christian school, my wife seeking truth to get rid of her secrets volunteered in the counseling department and as for me, up to this point in my personal ministry I had only the honor of leading ten’s and fifties, now I was able to stretch and lead hundreds and thousands (Exodus 18:21). I now had the opportunity to lead, teach and train 250 “Home Meeting” Leaders which in turn ministered to over a 1000 people each week.
I also had the opportunity to use some gifting that Jesus had given me as I was the overseer of the “ministry of helps”. Unfortunately there are many people who go from church building to church building scamming ministries for food, money and lodging as they tell their victimized story and make people feel sorry for them. My responsibility was to discern the true needs from the frauds. Wow! What an education, one that I could have never paid for.
6 - DARKNESS IN MINISTRY What came next in this ministry was very dark, darker than I could have ever imagined. It is the exact repeat of Ezekiel chapters eight through eighteen. The Spirit of the Lord called me to look a little closer to the “behind the scenes” of this ministry. I looked and knew what I was seeing was true but didn’t want to believe it, truly detestable things. Over a couple of years, the Spirit would keep saying look a little closer and I will show you an even more detestable thing. Ezekiel 8:7 looking into the inner chambers where money was counted and decisions were made. Were these men and women following the council of God or were they plotting against the council of God? Mine was to observe only, as I was a man under authority and I had given my word of loyalty to the man that was called Pastor and submitted to his leadership.
I had witnesses come to me with data in their hand that proved not only moral and spiritual misconduct but legal misconduct was taking place. Still I could not raise a hand against this leader. That was God’s job. Either he was a true leader that had gone astray or a false leader period. Either way, he belonged to Jesus and I could not, I would not “touch” a man that I had given my word to and a man that I influenced hundreds to follow I had already sworn to my own hurt (Psalm 15:4). To make a long story short I was fired. Praise the Name of our Lord! Was I shipwrecked again? No; not this time. This time I had a purpose. The Spirit of the Lord had showed me some things that I needed to understand and workout in my life. I called an acquaintance who was working for a world-wide moving company and he gave me a large contract of unloading military personnel at Ft. Lewis, who had just arrived the night before from Germany. The Moving Company was back in swing. After three months of sitting in this ministry but not as a leader, it was so awkward that I moved my family out of the building and just went home.
It was at that time I understood some of the things that Jesus was teaching me, about me and the gift that he had put within me. When I served under men who were leaders of tens and fifties, I was frustrated with the smallness of their vision and their work. When I served under men who were leaders of hundreds, I would see unacceptable things that I would deny and try to submit to their vision, no matter how slow it seemed to be moving. I just chalked it up to me being young and immature, a little rebellious and bored. But then serving a man who was a leader of thousands and experiencing a glimpse of that position, I realized that my frustration was that I was called to be a leader of thousands, yet being trained by leaders of less. Oh, don’t get me wrong; yes, I suffered great frustration but it was the most excellent way for God to start hammering-out the pride, rebellion, self importance, and chipping away the swindling Jacob attitude out of my life (Gen. 25:31).
7 - APOSTLES, THE WAY OF EGYPT AND BABYLON Through this processes of going to the epitome of the darkest side of ministry, God revealed two ways different from the path of God: the way of Egypt and the way of Babylon. God also revealed to me what my gift of Apostle was plus gave me an opportunity to establish from the ground up. First: the way of Egypt and the way of Babylon. God once again honored me by giving me an older man to study the scriptures with for about eight years straight. He was about seventy two years old when we were introduced and I must have been around thirty. I adopted him and his wife as grandparents for my children and we would “talk the scriptures” two or three times a week for three or four hours at a time. First subject was symbols in scripture, which took us to the word .
EGYPT
2 - The Zeal of the Lord, the early years
3 - The Life of a Digger
4 - Gold Mining in Alaska to San Diego to Spokane
5 - Five Hour Commute to Seattle
6 - Darkness in Ministry
7 - Apostles, the Way of Egypt and Babylon
8 - Demon Deliverance, Kicked-out of Fed/Wy WA
9 - Jezebel and Ahab
10 - Recovery did it happen? Maybe Yes, Maybe No
11- Jezebel and Ahab, Thy Kingdom shall Crash
12 - Job's Hour, From Darkness to Light
13 - Public Ministry 2002 - 2003
14 - Weakness in the Body of Christ
1- THE FEAR OF THE LORD
Many years ago I bowed on my knees at an old wooden alter in the front of a church building as I responded to a call to make Jesus the Lord of my life, I finally realized that I needed a Savior (John 3:3, 16, Romans 6:23, 10:9, Ephesians 10:9). When I left that building in February of 1973 it seemed as if the ice cycles hanging from the roof tops transformed into sparkling crystal ornaments as the sun shined through them. The colors of the Evergreen trees looked deep and rich. The air was so crisp that I could see my breath, yet there was a warmth inside of me that no words could explain then or now. This fourteen year old boy had been given a gift that morning in Kansas, a gift of life. A gift of eternal life and I knew it.
Psalm 111:10
Philippians 2:10-11
…a city in the Old Testament that saved the children of God in the day of Joseph but the cost was 400 years of slavery business for a profit, climb your way to the top no matter who you step on or hurt “forced to make more bricks with less straw.” That one was easy.
BABYLON
…a city in the Old Testament that God used to discipline the Children of Israel and a prostitute in the New Testament that kills Apostles, Prophets and mature saints of God. The simplest answer I can give without bogging down the revelation is that Babylon is the symbol that describes all of the religious systems in the world. Yes, all of them.
APOSTLES
Ok, what about Apostles? Just a quick background, in the day it was first used, the name apostle referred to an admiral in the navy and meant one who was sent. Listed in Ephesians 4:11 he is the lead of the five gifts that Jesus called to equip His church (the principle of first mentioned). In Ephesians 2:20 the Apostle and the Prophet are listed as the foundation of the church with Jesus as the chief cornerstone. In Revelation 18:20 God judges Babylon on behalf of the Apostles and Prophets.
There are the first twelve “apostles of the lamb” (Judas got booted and was probably replaced by Paul) these witnessed Jesus first hand. Then there were over a dozen more mentioned by name in scripture, like Barnabas (Acts 14:14). Most of the religious world places the end of all Apostles when the Bible was organized into the “canon”.
“ when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” 1 Corinthians 13:10
This school of thought not only gets rid of the Apostles and Prophets it also denies the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Religious problem? Present day Apostles and Prophets are rising up in the power of the Spirit of God and the Word of God to preach the last sermon in the Bible, Revelation 14:7. Just a note here, the name Apostle and Prophet are more of a job description than a title. Not men to dominate but gifts of authority and service to the body of Christ to equip and mature the people.
8 - DEMON DELIVERANCE & KICKED-OUT OF “FEDERAL WAY WASHINGTON”
Wow, I almost got ahead of my self because even though I had the revelation of these things, they were not worked out in my experience yet, so after I was fired from my last post and moved my children out of the private school, brought them home and “home schooled” them I also had a half dozen young singles show-up at my home to study and pray. This group birthed a House-to-House ministry. We were committed to staying out of the religious building system with the once a week meeting and enjoy the wonderful presence of the Lord everyday in our homes, at work, on the city bus and in our neighborhoods. It was working; people accepting Jesus as Lord and Savor, being filled with the power of His Spirit, experiencing deliverance and healing and walking in it. Wow, the most wonderful move of the presence of God in my life yet. Many houses were being opened for ministry, the influence of the Lord Jesus in our lives was reaching to the city borders.
Finally it happened; a demon possessed man delivered by the power of God. I woke-up one morning and ask God what He was doing that day and if I could be a part of it. He told me that today I would be turning a page in my book of life. He said: “Today you are casting out demons.” The Spirit of God took me through the scriptures, with the encouragement of a tape series entitled The Truth of Exorcism, from a world-wide preacher, who is now in Glory with Jesus. Pretty wild name, Exorcism! Well this was a pretty wild man and bold in God and in the face of the devil. I pulled together a men’s retreat and I was praying before an evening meeting, the Lord spoke to me in the book of Joshua chapters one through three saying;
“Now the LORD said to Joshua, "This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you”. Joshua 3:7
Under the direction of the Lord, I carried a couple of sets of tire chains into the meeting and explained to the men, that Jesus would bring deliverance this night. I started by calling the demon possessed man forward and put the chains around his neck and likened the weight of the chains as his weight of demon possession. I prayed for him and commanded the demon to leave. It did and we all could see the man’s eyes for the first time. He blinked and asked: “Where am I?” I said: “You have been set free from a demon, now throw the chains off of your neck and stand on them, declaring never to pick them up again.” He did and two more men picked up the chains placed them around their necks and asked if I would pray for them. Truly Jesus brought deliverance for these men that night and also proved that just as He was with Moses and Joshua, He was with me. I continued to baptize new believers into the body of Christ, in Jesus’ name!
Remember that I discovered one way God would move me around was usually through circumstances like a dried-up brook. Except this time it was the City of Federal Way in Washington State. An agitated neighbor went to the city and “proved” that I was running “a church” out of my house and the next thing I knew I had a cease activity order on my front door saying; “Stop holding meetings or pay $5000.00 and 6 months in jail.” Oh, the newspapers wanted a story but I wouldn’t give them an interview. The religious leaders in the community quickly said that I was not a part of their ministerial association, and that I should be a more considerate neighbor. I called a national ministry that legally fights for Christians rights; they backed out after three months telling me that they couldn’t win the fight because the city turned it into a “zoning issue” instead of a personal rights issue. Now I knew God was up to something.
TO THE MOUNTAINS
I appeared one time before a local court and lost. So I sold my house to some lying, stealing drug dealers, moved out of Federal Way and brushed the dust off of my feet (Matthew. 10:14). I am headed for the mountains. On the way to Mt. Rainier in Washington I bought a property which put me about an hour from the cities that I had established ministries in. I was not as accessible to the Elders and Deacons and they all had to “step-up” to the plate now. They have seen me minister, pray and cast out demons, now it was their turn.
The mountain property had an extra cabin on it so I turned it into a discipleship training school. I had my first four young men committed to study with me the first four hours of the day and the next four hours they worked on several projects on the property to pay their tuition. I also held a few men’s retreats and several “Saturday Schools” (seven hour seminars) on the property. The whole time working out the revelations that God had shown me. The next major test was a power named Jezebel and her sorry husband, King Ahab.
9 - JEZEBEL AND AHAB
This season started with a book that was given to me called “Not many Fathers” by Richard Wright in Portland Oregon. This was my first reading of a man who calls himself Apostle who was trying to walk in his gift. I called him, we met for lunch and God asked me if I still had a submissive heart. This was a year test that almost sheared my skin off. I submitted myself, my family and my whole ministry to this man and his wife. They were older than I and it really seemed as if they understood what a spiritual father was. Up to this point, I had been carving everything out of a rock and I was ready to follow a mentor that had experience beyond mine!
I took a group of leaders to a seminar this Apostle held on deliverance. We had experienced some success in praying for people for healing and casting out devils and I thought sure this Apostolic Gift would be able to take us to the next level. We arrive and found a “woman prophet” teaching on how God wants to transport us around like he did Philip after ministering to the Ethiopian man. Then she turned the meeting to demon deliverance and it wasn’t anything more than the coughing, puking, and spiting up demons side show. In days gone by in the South, people would put spit-tunes at the back door of their church buildings so that folks could puke their demons out as they came in. This lady conditioned people (my leaders included) that they were all going to cough-up a demon. I was just mad until I got hit in the cross-fire. I went forward to pick my leaders off the floor, get them to stop puking and find our way back home as quick as possible. That is until I was helping one lady off the floor and this “woman prophet” grabbed me, prayed some quick prayer in tongues and sure enough I started puking. I had a demonic manifestation take place in my body. I was shocked as the Apostle and his wife just sat there supposedly praising the Lord.
I got the group back home, deprogrammed them and cleansed them by the Word and with prayer. Then I called the Apostle and asked if this was a normal meeting for his ministry and he assured me it was not. He told me that they asked this lady to speak but evidently she had changed some of her doctrines since the last time they heard her. I told him that this was a really bad start for he and I, but I would give it some time for our relationships to develop.
I had the Apostle come and minister to my leaders and at several meetings with all the groups from each town, these meetings didn’t have much “meat” but they seemed to go pretty well. Then after a while he brought his wife and her “prophetic team” to minister. I had the meeting tape recorded as they seemed to have a prophecy for everyone in the room, including each child. It was hard to keep track of all this “utterance.” She capped it off by speaking over me and my wife (at the time) with promises from God of riches, big buildings, and glory in my ministry. I had young Christians listening and just lapping all this up like a thirsty dog at his water bowl. A photo was taken of me just after those words were spoken and I looked sick and gray…… because I was sick and gray.
I had one mature sister sitting by the door who found herself gasping for breath during the meeting. She left the room and the ministry for three months. That was how long it took to correct the problem. I talked with the Apostle about his wife and how I had judged her prophecy over me as false. It was nothing more than trying to puff me up with everything that I had already been delivered of. It had no scriptural foundation or purpose. As she gave these amazing words, they only exalted her and not Christ. The Apostle’s response was horrifying. He told me that not every prophecy has to be right on the mark. He said that I had to have grace as they are “teaching” people how to minister and prophecy, this is a training time. The whole time I was trying to see the best in this older couple, as I still heard God’s voice asking me if I still had a submissive heart.
APOSTLES GATHERING
I was willing to give it one more chance as this Apostle “father” (I John 2:12) was gathering all of his “spiritual sons” from across the world for a yearly conference. Up to this point in my life, I had only seen two Apostles that I knew of and I was told that there would be from 20 to 30 at the conference. Ok, I am in. I took a team with me this time and we were “prayed-up” eyes open and believing that our discernment was turned on. First day, kind of great, I hit it off with a black brother from Louisiana who had been meeting with about 40 ministers each month in his town; one of them being Jimmy Swaggart. This group of men was ministering to each other and restoring brother Swaggart. It was all about restoration. Then the evening meeting came. It seemed that every devil in Portland came to visit but the Apostle and his wife were pretty comfortable with it all. I understand and give plenty of space when it comes to a person’s preference of worship but my team and I observed some of the worst manipulation I had seen in my life up to this point.
It must have been an hour and a half of chanting, waving flags to scare demons away, speaking in tongues not directed by the Holy Spirit of God. We experienced people that looked like mindless zombies chanting and singing a repetitive phrase. It got so bad my 80 year old Elder stood-up and said: “Get me the hell out of here!” Problem, the sound of the instruments and music was so loud that only his wife and a few near by heard him or even noticed his exit. That night in the Hotel room he told me he was leaving. I asked him to stay until the next morning and see what God was going to do. He reluctantly agreed. The following morning I would like to say that I had such a powerful “Word of the Lord” that everyone fell on the floor and shouted: “Surely the presence of God is in this place” but it didn’t quite go that way. Oh, I had a “Word of the Lord” alright but when I was done no one was on the floor and my team and I were asked to leave the conference. Try to picture this. The meeting just got started, a couple of announcements and then I found myself standing up in the middle of the room. It seemed like everything happened in slow motion. The Apostle’s wife saw me stand and gave a quick sign to her daughter who was the piano player, to “start it up” to block me from going forward. Again in slow motion, I felt like I floated forward and glared at the daughter and motioned her to stop playing and she did. I remember seeing The Apostle looking at me in the eye as I was coming up on the platform but I also remember being able to see myself from what seemed like the back of the room. I was observing myself, yet I was standing upfront. I was feeling nothing; I just listened to myself speak. Still in slow motion, I said: “I have a ‘Word from God’ the Apostle rushed a microphone over to me and told me to speak. I addressed the Apostle: “As the leading Apostle in this room, a room filled with many Apostles, I am to tell you that there is a Jezebel in the room and there can be a wonderful deliverance if we all pray together and ask God how to deal with her.” He said with a firm voice, still in slow motion: “Who is it!?” I replied: “Your wife.” What happened next happened very fast, almost like viewing fast forward on your video player. The microphone was taken out of my hand and me, my Elder, another Apostle from Wales and the leading Apostle were all rushed out of the building and the Apostle’s wife continued the meeting with her repetitive music and chanting. We talked outside for a few minutes and agreed that we couldn’t walk together as we were not in agreement. I was “banned” from this conference and his entire group. Even, as we were driving back to Washington and crossed the Washington border, the voice of the Lord said: “Jezebel is chasing you.” My response was: “I will not run like Elijah (1 Kings 19:2, 3), I have zero tolerance for the woman Jezebel” (Revelation 2:20). Believe me when I say, this declaration would be heavily tested in my life from that day on. My eyes were then opened to Jezebels on every hand.
10 - RECOVERY DID IT HAPPEN? MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO.
By this time my discernment was questioned by almost everyone within my influence. If I was an Apostle how could I have lead the ministry into fellowship with a group of false gifts? What else have I spoken that might not be true? Perhaps I could no longer hear God. A ripple and grumbling took place within the camp that shook every family. My friend and bookkeeper said that she and her husband didn’t like the way I was spending the ministry’s money so she handed the books back over to me. Trying to maintain accountability I turned the books over to a successful business couple in the ministry that seemingly didn’t have a problem with money.
The Lord continued to open my eyes to several people who were operating in a Jezebel power and the different degrees or levels of power they manifested. As I was learning how this power worked I didn’t know that it only worked in women. After talking to a brother for several months I knew that there was a Jezebel power at work and at a leadership meeting I said that he was a Jezebel. Well I knew I missed the mark when his wife, sitting behind him, rose up and screamed at me. Then two pieces of instruction came from the Lord; first, a Jezebel only operates in a female and second a Jezebel has to have a man an “Ahab” to work through. At this point, I had publicly identified only three women who fit the Jezebel in Revelation Chapter three. I asked those in my influence to turn their backs on these women to give them space to repent. Non repented, they just assembled their own gathering of more Jezebels and Ahabs.
Several of us flew to North Carolina to a “House-to-House” ministry conference where we heard some “new thought” on a few doctrines. I asked all who went, not to teach these “new thoughts” until we all got back to pray about them and make a plan to introduce some of these practices gradually. I returned a week later and found confusion in the camp as my new bookkeeping family had already preached the teachings. It was Moses coming off the mountain and finding out that his brother Aaron had made a golden calf to worship. Within two months I had to shut down the entire formal ministry asking everyone to meet spontaneously from House-to-House and to invite the Elders and Five-Fold gifts over for training and to help with the “harder” ministry items.
GRADUATION
This graduation did not go so smoothly. Some families went back into the Babylonian system and sat on a pew in a church building, others were just ship wrecked. But after four years now, I am glad to say that some of them made it, producing wonderful fruit. At the onset of this graduation I found myself with no financial vision for me and my family so I turned the Mountain Property into an overnight lodging village as we lived in a resort area. The property was beautiful and brought people from all over the world to lodge as they came to ski at Crystal Mountain or visit Mt. Rainier. Now with time on my hands and not many people to minister to, considering most who were in my influence wouldn’t even talk to me now, God had me look inward.
I still considered myself a young “Father” in the ministry at the age of 40, and definitely a young green Apostle that sometimes hurt people with my “sword” rather than skillfully using it like a master surgeon to heal people. Plus, I had some darkness in my life that I had struggled with for over 30 years and still did not seem successful in getting rid of it. I had actually given-up hope of deliverance for the past few years altogether. Oh, I would pray and minister to others in this same area and see them have great breakthroughs and deliverances but I couldn’t seem to find the right key to get the same stronghold off my back. This was the season. This was the time. This was my desert of Revelation. Either this darkness would leave or I would be disqualified from the race.
”…but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified”
1 Corinthians 9:27.
11 - JEZEBEL AND AHAB, THY KINGDOM SHALL CRASH!
Oh, you name it and I probably dealt with it the last few years in my own home. Victimization, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, rejection, sin, fraud, lying, drugs, and living double personalities just to name a few. I had prided myself in my marriage of 20 years and in my children ages fourteen and twelve. I prided myself in being a great husband, father and minister. My whole message was “Get Your House in Order and the Church will be in order.” Now God was going to help me get my house in order.
You see, God had already tested me so many times, to see if I had any tolerance for Jezebel (Revelation 2:20). Each encounter and confrontation was hard, identifying the woman Jezebel, turning her to Jesus and Jesus giving her space to repent. My job was to have NO TOLERANCE. Jesus showed me over and over again that I truly had no tolerance. Even though I hated the name, some even called me the “Jezebel Buster.” Then The Lord pointed out the strongest Jezebel in my life. Dear God, Dear God no! Please no. Not in my home. If I had a Jezebel in my home, that would make me an …,
God said: “Yes, an Ahab“. An Ahab is a weak-willed spineless husband with a man pleasing spirit and a house out of order with a woman that has undermined your authority for 20 years. A power in her that has held you back from your full walk with Me. A power that has controlled you and held you prisoner, through the practice of continual rejection plus manipulation with sex. How long will you tolerate the woman Jezebel?” I answered: “Lord you know. You have given me zero tolerance, this time is no different.” I had a confrontation with this woman and drew the “line in the dirt.” This Jezebel could no longer feed off of my authority and sabotage the work of the Lord in the family and beyond. About nine months later I “went to the couch” and she was afraid of what the kids would think. Ha, they already knew more than we did at the time. She acquired a credit card in her own name, flew to her hometown on the East Coast for a class reunion and met up with a man that she later confessed she had been in love with all of our marriage. I had no idea that she was engaged to him when I asked her to marry me 20 years earlier at college but things were starting to become a little more clear to me. She came home from the reunion with a piece of paper that she had written on. She told me that God spoke to her while away and she wrote it down so she could give me the word and not forget any of it. She told me that God told her to set me free through divorce. I was a little caught off guard but not shocked. It was if I knew it was coming and I had the freedom to quickly agree. We told our children and the few friends we had left. My children already knew something was wrong and I found out later that they had been experimenting with drugs and other lifestyle choices that were not acceptable. Once their mother left and moved 2000 miles away, they chose to continue in these choices to cope with their issues. My friends? All but three families abandoned me and my children. Then later the three left with the rest.
12 - JOB’S HOUR
Me? I never threw-up so much in my life. I purged over so many things in the next couple of months as I just simply tried to stay alive. I was blessed that my children remained with me as their mom moved to the East Coast but a year later they too left me and went to live with her. I had blamed this woman for most of my problems. I would justify my 20 years of sin because she would constantly reject me and belittle me. I would blame it on the woman that God gave me, (Genesis 3:12). But now she was gone and I had no excuses. It was just me and God. Now was my time for deliverance! No more denial, no more living like two personalities, no more co-dependency, only healing and deliverance ahead. It was dark, but I know that God’s day starts at NIGHT and this was a very dark night! This was to be my “Jobs” hour and it was. The only difference was that Job was righteous and I wasn’t. I lost everything: friends, family, finances, lands, houses, prestige, titles, self importance, I even lost weight. I had no grand vision, no revelations and at times, I had anxiety attacks and thought I had lost my mind. In those first months, I fought off depression by trying out for a play at my son’s middle school. I would send my children off to school in the morning but instead of me going back to bed, I would clean the few cabins that I had rented out the night before, study my lines and then go to play practice. I tried my best to process my children through this time of life but the truth was that I was a mess myself and I didn’t do very good helping them. I didn’t really understand it all myself, so they probably thought what I said wasn’t valid anyway. Then an Email popped up on my computer screen one evening. A message from a person I had ministered to about four years prior. A message of encouragement. A message from a woman (can you hear me smiling?). She sent me a scripture that I had given her when she went through a tough divorce;
“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day”
Genesis 1:31
”For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope” Jeremiah 29:11.
I knew that my night was passing and the sun seemed to be coming out. I called the three families that had stayed with me, plus a distant acquaintance to come to the mountain to join me and my son and daughter to have a barbeque and celebrate: we are leaving the mountain. This mountain sustained me for over five years of my life and I was going to leave with a party. Oh yes, I also invited the wonderful lady that had sent me the Email.
TIME TO BUCKLE UP, I AM GETTING MARRIED!
Yes, it seemed pretty fast to get engaged to be married. Ok, OK! It was really fast! But I knew it was right and she knew it was right as our Lord Jesus showed us a new covenant based on better promises! By faith we made our covenant before God and started a new life for ALL of us. She had a 19 year old son and a 4 year old son and I had a 15 year old daughter and a 13 year old son. We did everything in our power to blend the two families over the first year but it just didn’t work. I believe that my children did not know what to do with me, now that I was happy. How could dad be so happy and my children be sooooo mad? At any rate they would not stop their illegal behaviors and when I put my foot down they ran away and ended up on the East Coast with their mom and the man she was with. My wife’s 19 year old son hated me and couldn’t handle our lifestyle so he took a traveling sales job and the 4 year old? Just as we were making plans for me to adopt him, his biological dad who had left him when he was born showed up out of the blue and decided he wanted to play dad. Finally the court settled a visitation schedule for him.
RELATIVES
I had keep in loose contact with my dad and mom over the years as they came to visit me at Bible College and were a great support at my wedding in Springfield Missouri. We actually housed them for two years in San Diego California. They moved to Sacramento and visited us twice as we moved to Washington. They retired back to Kansas and I had made a little extra money one Christmas and flew my family to Kansas so my kids could meet their cousins. This was the last time I was to see my mother before she died as they made a final move to live in Texas and there she passed away. My dad finally moved back to Kansas to live with my second brother. Then when things settled down a bit I flew back to Kansas for my mother’s memorial. I had a chance to fly dad back to Washington to meet my new wife and my next trip to Kansas was with my new wife and youngest step-son to attend my dad’s memorial. I have talked to my brothers on occasion but have not seen them since.
My new wife’s relatives had a lot to say about her marrying me. She had her mom and dad, three sisters and their husbands, cousins, nieces and nephews all living within and hour from us. They all had “issues.” She also worked for some powerful business men and they too had issues, as I was taking away their very valuable partner. So we ended up just having a simple exchanging of covenant vows in our side yard. Our guests were God, our four children, and my brother in the Lord and his wife who stuck with me through the whole this part of my transition.
TWO YEARS OF TRANSITION
There comes a time in many minister’s lives when a tragedy happens, and there needs to be time to be refreshed and healed, to re-evaluate the vision and once again put the house in order before moving on or going back to war, Deuteronomy 20:5-8. My case is no different; I really needed the time and God gave it to me.
HOUSE IN ORDER DEUTERONOMY 20:5-8
I moved my new family off the mountain to a little town in Washington State and reopened my moving business to pay the bills. My wife and I had two years to blend ourselves together. It was difficult. Both of us in our forties with a lot of renewing to do. She has successfully dealt with strongholds in her past and I have received deliverance from the tormenting demons of mine. Praise the name of the Lord forever! My two children are not living with me but my wife’s older son has come to the Lord and I was honored to baptize both him and his younger brother in water.
FINANCES IN ORDER DEUTERONOMY 20:5-8
My wife and I are in a season of being debt free! Did you hear that? DEBT FREE!
RELATIONSHIPS IN ORDER DEUTERONOMY 20:5-8
Both Sandy and I have had to turn our backs on some old acquaintances and relatives for a season just to stabilize our home.
13 - WHAT ABOUT MINISTRY? 2002
God not only did not disqualify me, he gave me an assignment. An “underdog” if you will, an old, tough, set-in-its-ways town, of about 20,000 people. Yes, I am an Apostle. A gift to the body of Christ world wide but today my call is to the United States of America and I am restarting with one town, (at a time).
My new family has blended into this small town in Washington. We have opened our little business, volunteered at the school, and participated with the downtown street festival for all three days. We shop in town to support the locals and have drunk enough coffee in the market place to “float the Ark.” We have paid our bills, run several garage sales, visited with the people in our neighborhood and even voted to save our local swimming pool. Every morning my wife and I have been blessed with a couple of hours to study the scriptures together and then get our youngest on the bus and safely off to school. God continued to reveal things to us about our home and how to walk in peace and victory. Then something changed. God began “showing” us things about the community, individuals and strongholds. God began “telling” us what to pray for in our town and nation. I sent out a letter to all of the men of the former House-to-House ministry and invited them to an informal meeting in the local park. I invited them to come and share what God had done in their lives over the last few years, since we had last assembled together. This meeting was to make sure that I had forgiven anyone who had offended me and to give opportunity for anyone else to forgive me for offending them; a time of restoration. I also asked if they could not make it, to please drop a letter in the mail so I could share with the rest of the brothers. Only one brother in the Lord, who walked with me over the last year showed-up; No one else did and no one sent a letter. I had done what the Lord had asked me. MEETING OF THE TOWN LEADERS Now I am on a roll, I mailed another invitation to all of the men who advertise in the local newspaper and phonebook as “spiritual leaders” in this town. I invited them to please join me at the local public library to try and answer a question: “Does Jesus ever give a universal message (a word of the Lord) to the whole body of Christ at the same time? If so, does anyone feel that they might have that word?” I also asked if they could not make it to please mail the little form back to me with any word or scripture. No one showed and nothing mailed back. Next, I placed an ad in the local newspaper with the following title: If I were the Devil, I could have stolen every sheep in this town. Who and where are the “Spiritual Fathers” of this town? I once again invited anyone who thought they were a “spiritual father” in this town to come and help answer the question on a universal message. Outside of myself and my friend, an astrologist showed up first, then a woman and finally a man who was almost eighty comes in! This man with white hair and rosy cheeks, respectfully “plops” his Bible on the table with this statement: “Folks, I will talk about any word or revelation as long as it is founded in this book, if it is not I am leaving.” Praise God finally a “father” at the table. I had listened to the astrologist for long enough and asked him to excuse himself and that perhaps he and I could talk privately later. I asked the lady to stay and listen and the three of us men had a wonderful hour looking at the scriptures. I have also been able to speak to this “father” on a couple of other occasions. THE CHURCH OF THIS TOWN Working with my calling as an apostle of Jesus, I have been directed into two main areas of ministry and focus. The first area is each individual city church. Currently, I am establishing The Church of this Town. The history of this area is typical of the State of Washington, it is steeped in Indian Spiritualism, even the name means the “Devil’s Claw.” This town has been lulled to sleep by compromising religious leaders, new age cults, the love of money, Jezebel women and Ahab men plus, folks who still worship “Tahoma”; the rock formation in Mr. Rainier that forms an Elk head. The first demon-possessed man that I was honored to pray deliverance for in this town was such a worshiper. UNDERGROUND IN THE USA The second area of ministry is the world at large but as the name says IN THE USA. I am specifically focused on America. This name has been with me since the year I was born again. God began to show me the way that the Government has restricted the public church building ministry, thus causing great compromise. Then I had a picture inside of me, of a ministry underground, not readily seen with the eye, a ministry that had the freedom, spoken of in the book of Acts. The Lord Jesus has called me, as well as several others world-wide, to expose and remove the obstacles that not only block the “gate’ to the Kingdom of God but weigh the Body of Christ down with heavy legalism. We are called to lead His people and His church into His presence, Matthew 7:13. Therefore, “Underground in the USA” is the banner I am using for this ministry and the domain name Therefore, “ is the banner I am using for this ministry and the domain name Once again, “Underground in the USA” is a small, world-wide ministry that is here to encourage each “City Church” with every “gift” and tool possible; fulfilling the Lord’s mandate of going into all-of-the world to preach the “good news” of the gospel and make disciples! Then as an Apostle of Jesus, I am also committed to establishing the church: Family-by-Family and House-to-House (Exodus 12:1-11, Matthew 18:20, 26:26, Acts 2:46). LOCAL MINISTRY 2003 I have discerned two main weak areas in the body of Christ that I have already started ministering locally. The first area is that believers in Jesus don’t know what to do after “salvation.” Folks who have been believers for over 40 years don’t know how to measure their spiritual growth, and therefore remain babies in the Lord, never experiencing the graduation of a mature man in Christ. The second area of weakness ties in with the first: most believers in Jesus are intimidated to read or study their Bibles; therefore they don’t grow in the Word of God. There are hundreds of reasons I could point to that have caused this fear but instead of looking at the causes and finding someone to blame, I have offered a solution. In establishing, there are a lot of “firsts” and here are a couple of mine. I was able to teach a Bible Seminar at the Public Library. The seminar was a blast but also caused quite a bit of a commotion in this small town and several have asked if I would repeat the teaching. Yes, by the Spirit of God and the Word of God, the power of intimidation is being broken in Jesus Name! The second step was to open our home on Sundays for an “open house.” My wife and I went to the neighbors and invited families to come and join us as I started teaching I John 2:12: How to measure your spiritual growth from Children to Young Men to Fathers, explaining, by the scriptures, how to move forward in our walk with Jesus. ”As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming…” Ephesians 4:14
We are having a few sporadic spontaneous gatherings at our house but the warfare is really tough.
MEETING OF THE BROTHERS
is for my website and online resources.
Locally, it seems that Jesus is using this little town as an example of how a city can unite under one banner, just as in Revelation chapters 2 & 3 where Jesus addresses the seven churches of Asia. Each letter going to the whole city, addressed to the leading “gift” in that church. In His time I also see the possibility of surrounding cities following the same pattern. The Lord has also given several dreams, confirmations and warnings of the work here and nation wide. One day I might be permitted to publish these dreams but as for now, this ministry is a work in progress and the dreams are specifically for us today.
13 - WEAKNESS IN THE BODY OF CHRIST
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March 2003 - I understand my current assignment from Jesus to be the following:
1. Get His church in order; the Bride’s gown needs a wash and a good pressing before the Wedding Banquet.
2. Point the way to the narrow gate and show how to live in the Kingdom of God.
3. Expose Babylon: her wide gate, her false ministry gifts, all of her Jezebel daughters and remove the obstacles that are blocking the narrow gate.
4. Encourage true ministry gifts to stand-up and get to work.
March 2003 - I understand my current revelations from Jesus to be the following:
1. The Present day body of Christ is the Church of Laodicea, the last church in the “Church Age.”
2. The Church is not a building or denomination it is simply people, two or more believers gathered in Jesus’ name!
3. The Present day Church is the Prodigal Son that has stepped out from under the headship of Christ and needs a U-turn of repentance.
4. The “Church Age” is not eternal. This will “blow” some religious minds. The Church Age is only an “age”. A season in the mind of God. The Church had its beginning in Matthew 16:18 and it has a completion just before the seventh trumpet is sounded.
“…but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as He preached to His servants the prophets…” Revelation l0:7.
Then we are the Bride of Christ Revelation 19.
5. The two witnesses are not just two people; they are two groups of people. The Apostles and the Prophets and the Word and the Spirit. 6. The last sermon in the Bible they preach?” Revelation 14:7, Fear God, Babylon has fallen, do not take the mark of the Beast or worship him or his image (Babylon). 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 All Coming Very Soon!
“Dear Lord, concerning UndergroundintheUsa.com, this is one site in what, a billion or more? What will make it different than all of the rest? It is as insignificant as a piece of sand on the ocean beach. Yet, I believe that just as You took a few loaves of bread and a few fish and fed the multitude, You have called me to this task. Break me and multiply this gift to Your Body, Your Church, Your Bride-to-be. Show me I pray, how to communicate the revelations you have given me in a way that will encourage sinners to repent, believers to put their house in order, remove obstacles from blocking the Gate to Your Kingdom and continue to keep Satan ‘underfoot’? Oh Lord, may this information be valuable to the dads who have purposed in their heart to follow your ways but need help and to the youth who are looking for hope for their future. I ask this in Your name Jesus, AMEN!