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CRY OF HIS SERVEANTS # 1 REPENT - THE KINGDOM

In the book of Matthew chapter 3 A man named John the Baptist showed up on a people who had fallen greatly into sin. We read the account of this in Matthew 3: “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying: REPENT for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand ! For this is He who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying:

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.”

As this proclamation was made, many came confessing their sins. Just then, the Pharisees and Sadducees approached the area where John was baptizing he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance.” John goes on to say in verse 10, “Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. There is no greater good news to be found anywhere than the gospel of Jesus Christ... Who else in the history of the world can claim to respond to the hearts cries? We hear the cry for caring love in an age of selfishness and violence, the cry for forgiveness in a time when reconciliation is rare, the cry for freedom when slavery and oppression abound on every side, the cry for hope in the gathering gloom of the world. All this is summed up in the cry of God. The clear answer is Jesus Christ, who by His presence among us has the power to change us to the core of our being.

I will now quote an excerpt from David Watson’s book written in 1982, “Called and Committed: World Changing Discipleship.”

“The Ineffectiveness of Western Christianity. With such numerical strength, such a relevant message, and such spiritual power, why is the Christian church, especially in the West, so comparatively ineffective? In 1979 the center for study of the world evangelization in Nairobi produced a computerized survey, based on an analysis of statistics from the world’s 223 countries, 6,720 ethno linguistic groups, 50 major religions, and more than 9,000 Christian denominations. According to that survey, conducted three years ago, about 1,815,100 adult professing Christians in Europe abandoned the faith to become agnostics, atheists, or adherents of non-Christian religions or cults. North America also registered a decline of 950,000. (These were net figures, after conversions to Christianity had been noted). However, during the same period, churches in the Third World countries experienced phenomenal gains: in Africa, 6,152,800, or 16,600 each day; in South Asia 34,813,000. Why is the Church in West in such sharp decline compared with the church in the poverty- stricken countries of the world?”

My point in quoting this excerpt is to simply get you questioning within yourself, what a terrible and unimaginable decline the Western church must be in today if those were the statistics of almost 30 years ago.

Christians in the west have largely neglected what it means to be Disciples of Christ. There is a large number of Christians today that are disciples of man, who follow all types of false teachings. Christians - church members, pew-fillers, hymn-singers, sermon-tasters, bible-readers, even “born-again believers” or “Spirit-filled” charismatic types, are not true disciples of Jesus. If we were willing to become true disciples, the church in America would be transformed, and the impact on society would be staggering. This is no idle claim. In the first century, a tiny handful of inexperienced, timid disciples filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, had the greatest spiritual revolution the world has ever know. Within three centuries, even the mighty Roman Empire yielded to the power of the gospel of Christ.

A communist once challenged a Western Christian: “The gospel is a much more powerful weapon for the renewal of society than is our Marxist philosophy, but it is we who will finally beat you … We Communists do not play with words. We are realists, and seeing our object, we know how to obtain the means… We believe in our message, and we are ready to sacrifice everything, even our lives… But you people are afraid to soil your hands.”

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

“Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As we see the current state of the Church and the state of the prophetic movement in America, we see a people that has given themselves over to the spirit of deception and has opened the door to every demon in hell. There is no holy discernment, or a cry of repentance all we see in most of the Church today is money-grabbing, teaching on “making me feel good” and a whole lot of lies, of these pillow prophets in the Church and in this so called prophetic movement of the Kansas City group.

In the eighties, I was a Vineyard pastor, and I started to see things that just did not line-up with the Bible. Don’t get me wrong, I loved brother John Wimber, but he made some mistakes and I don’t agree with all that was said. And many things that were said about him and what was written was a lie because I was in those very conferences and ministered with John from time to time.

The main thing was that the soap was good, it was those other men who came in and started to misrepresent and saying things you could not find in the Bible. I left the Vineyard movement and the Kansas City movement in 1992 just before it went totally bad. But the Lord spoke to me and said, “Come out from among them my son.” I asked the Lord God why He wanted me to come out? And He made it very clear that already there was false prophets among them. So by obedience I left. I was with Bob Jones the prophet at his house several times and ministered with him. He was a very good friend of mine and I had always stood up for Bob even after the movement went bad. But then Bob went off the deep end, into all kinds of deception, I had to draw the line and cut all ties.

I say to you that in 2008 the Lord God is about to “…lay the ax to the very root,” and throw many of the so-called church into a judgment of death. For many are about to see the return of Ananias and Saphira type disciplines take place in 2008-2009. (Acts 5) The Lord God will bring back the kind of fear that the early Church had.

You may say, “That won’t happen!” But when I ministered in the decade of the 1990’s, in one of the churches I spoke at, I proclaimed that very thing and the Pastor rose up against the prophetic and the Lord God’s Word, and shortly after that, he fell over and died. Two other Pastors also fell over and died.

I will tell you that the Lord God wants His Church to repent and come back to Him, but it has refused to do so. Now He is sending His judgment in a way that the church in America has never seen before. So I say to you by the mercy of the Living God, REPENT! Now, before it is too late. For there is going to be much death in 2008 and 2009 like never before, in the Church and out of the Church. Is that in the bible? You bet. Everywhere.

We need to cry out and repent and ask the Lord for His transforming power in our lives and to cut ties and come out from among those who refuse to repent from the wickedness going on in the church today. If we accept God’s discipline with humble, believing hearts, our lives will grow purer and our faith stronger.

As we look at the Church in its current form, we see a church that is in sharp decline. Some of the reasons the church has no impact on the world is because the church is out of order. 1. There is no holy wisdom. 2. There is no holy discernment 3. There is no call for Repentance “REPENT! For the Kingdom of God is at hand.” 4. There is no hunger for the Holy Word of God. The only hunger you see is the hunger of riches, deception and divination.

We need a “Great Awakening” again. We serve a mighty God! But to look at the church in America you would think we serve a God of no power that is dead. I got news for you, I serve a God who is full of power and Who is mighty! Although, as Jesus Christ has said, there will be “a great falling away,” I know also we will see a mighty outpouring in the last days, in times of darkness and trouble on the earth. That hour is here, now. For the Lord God is raising up John the Baptist types; the Moses and Elijah‘s. Sons of God. True Holy Prophets. It is happening now. The true mark of these men and this last hour work will have several qualities.

1. A call for true Repentance.

2. A call for Holy Wisdom

3. A call for Holy Discernment.

4. A call for the proper order of the Church

5. A call for true Disciples (Discipleship for the true work of righteousness.)

6. A call for the Holy Word of God (A call of fiery preaching).

7. A call for Holiness unto the Lord God.

8. A call for preparation; places of refuge; for the final pending judgment has started.

Make no mistake about it, we are at war. In this fight we see the Kingdom of God in battle with the kingdom of Satan. The battle is for you for very soul and those of other men, women, and children. This battle is a cry for repentance and holiness, for without this no man shall see God.

Though Satan is defeated, he still has great power, power that can kill if left unchecked. In World War II, most military experts agree, victory for the Allies was assured on D-Day, June 6, 1944. (The day they successfully invaded Nazi-occupied Europe on the Normandy beaches) Because Germany failed to prevent their entrances, victory for the British, American, and Canadian forces was inevitable. But it took eleven months for the allies to actually end the war.

During this time thousands of men lost their lives in the bloodiest battles of the entire conflict. The coming V-E Day, (May 8, 1945) was assured but not realized. We are in a similar position as Christians. The final and full establishment of the Kingdom of God, with Christ as its head, was assured at the resurrection, but we have yet to realize its fullness in the days in which we live We too are soldiers, members of Christ’s army. Paul instructs Timothy, “Endure hardships with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Tim.2:3). There is a war yet to be fought, an enemy still capable of inflicting great harm…if we allow him to. We must equip ourselves by allowing the power of the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and work through us to defeat the enemy.

His Servant, Jan. 3, 2008

Matthew Stephen VMI – Publishers

509-496-9740 www.propheticwatchmanvine.com