(forwarded to GospelTopics Mailing List)

We were talking before about judgment on Pastors who reject true apostolic government, and I just wanted to explain briefly more about the various stages Pastors may find themselves in at this time, and according to their standing, God will be more merciful to the ones who, as you said, will be accountable for what they know.

First of all, sin is sin, whether you are aware you are sinning or not, and false doctrine is false doctrine, even if you think what you are teaching is right. There are several stages of pastors on the scene right now:

Ignorant Pastors:

Simply have had little or no exposure to true apostolic ministry and teaching on divine order, who are immature in their ministry gifts and unable to raise up the full 5-fold as true shepherds who are fully anointed to train and equip others. They are immature and just don't know it. God extends the greatest mercy to these shepherds. These Pastors, if they have a true shepherd's heart, will accept true teachings on greater shepherding ministry gifts.

Rejecting Pastors:

These are Pastors who have enough exposure to true apostolic ministry and teachings on divine order, who simply refuse to believe that God is restoring 5-fold ministry offices and refuse to accept modern day apostles and prophets. I have even seen links to your old pages and some of my old pages in their teaching against ministries like ours. These Pastors are proud and willfully reject what we say about modern day apostles and the restoration of the apostle and prophet. They also mock those filled with the Spirit who speak with other tongues and stand in disbelief of various other signs and miracles God is sending to confirm His Word. These are the ones God is addressing more seriously and putting DANGER signs in the spirit realm for them to see to turn back before it's too late. (These are the spirits I was dealing with so strongly in my teaching on the orphaned path.)

These are the blind guides who won't let others enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and won't go in themselves.

Matt 23:13
13 "How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you won't let others enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and you won't go in yourselves. (NLT)

Matt 23:13
13 "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. (NKJ)

There is also a false pastoral spirit that wants preeminence over the church which refuses to acknowledge the authority of the apostle. Those who reject modern day apostles and prophets are operating under the same evil spirit of rebellion and non-submissiveness to the authority of God as Diotrephes.

3 Jn 1:9
9 I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not acknowledge our (the apostle's) authority. (NKJ); (NLT)

I have also heard some more well known men say that the Pastor is the highest ranking official in the Body of Christ, this is the same spirit of Diotrephes talking. They are referring to the authority God has given each Pastor to accept or reject apostles and prophets teaching among the congregation to protect the saints. This does not make the Pastor a greater officer than an Apostle, it is authority designed only to keep false apostles and false prophets and their false doctrine out of the church, but not to keep true apostles and prophets and their true doctrine from reigning in their God given authority as the highest ranking officers. If you get the ranking of the officers out of order, divine order will be hindered and so will the flow of the anointing.

The Pastor's anointing to keep out or let in apostles, prophets, and other outside ministry gifts does not make them the highest ranking officials in the Body of Christ, they are just the watchmen and the doorway of the local church. It is the same in any family household. Not even the President of the United States has more authority over my wife and children than I do unless I submit to his authority and invite his government into my house. He can come knock on my door all he wants, but unless I open the door and welcome him, he has no authority to be in my house. That of course does not make me a higher ranking government official than the President here in the United States, it just means that I am the watchman and doorkeeper of my house. In the same way, I would be a fool not to let the President in knowing that he would most likely be bringing some good news or some good benefit to my house if whatever he had to say was so important that he himself would knock on my door. If I had done something wrong, it would most likely be the FBI or the local police.

Believing, but shallow Pastors:

Then there are Believing Pastors who have had little exposure to apostolic ministry or who just need to get motivated to dive in deeper, who need to make adjustments to include training for all 5-fold ministers of the Gospel in order to fully operate in the mature and deepest anointing of their calling. These Pastors need to expand their vision to become a training center for all the officers of the church and all the gifts of the Spirit. A Pastor and the local church should be training centers for every ministry gift that any believer can operate in, in the Body of Christ. It doesn't mean they are experts at every area of understanding, but at least they know enough to get people headed in the right direction. I would not expect all Pastors to know necessarily as much about apostles as the apostles themselves know, but they should learn as much as they can about all gifts and functions of the Spirit, and especially the governing offices if they want their churches to be run by the true apostolic government pattern. How can you govern by a pattern you don't understand and can't teach to others? Without adequate understanding of all 5 offices, the Pastor cannot properly build the church and equip others for the work of the ministry. Their churches will lack fruit.

The way a local church can lack fruit by not being able to prepare all 5-fold officers is because one aspect of love (fruit) is obedience. How can someone obey or respond to a call to be a 5-fold officer if the local church cannot even begin to train them? That means the person called in churches that are not equipped cannot obey in that church because their is no Word going forth regarding 5-fold officers by which they can govern their gifts. They then have to leave that church or other churches along their path until they can find a government structure that they can submit to, learn from, be properly governed by, and grow in the usefulness of their gift in. How can someone plant themselves in soil that does not go deep enough in the love of God to include teachings on 5-fold officers and the gift they are called in? A plant that remains in a pot in which its roots can no longer grow will eventually run out of new ground to find nourishment and will stunt its own growth and risk dying from lack of nutrition. I believe that some people need to obey God and come out of those types of churches and pray for Him to guide them to a church with a Pastor who can lead them to green pastures, a place where there is peace and joy in the Spirit and plenty to eat!

Apostolic & Prophetic Pastors:

Then there are those Pastors who are on the cutting edge of the move of the Spirit, who are gaining knowledge and know full well that God Himself sets apostles and prophets in the Church. These pastors are on the cutting edge of apostolic and prophetic ministry and are moving in cooperation with true apostolic and prophetic teachings. This does not mean they are submitting their ministries over to the first apostle they hear about, but they are carefully considering and weighing all that is being said by them in the Spirit. They are lining themselves up with the true New Testament Pattern for ministry that God is commanding all ministries to come under.

They are already teaching on the Office of an Apostle and the Office of a Prophet. They are usually marked by a peculiar prophetic flow in their anointing that is also restoring order to the Body of Christ in cooperation with the Apostles and Prophets. They are building their ministries up and providing in house schooling and schooling facilities so that others don't have to GO AWAY to be trained for 5-fold ministry, but they are making their own ministries training camps for God's saints to fulfill their destiny in.

God is raising up a measuring rod of true leadership, true shepherds, and true mothers and fathers in the Body of Christ. Leaders who will shepherd God's people according to True New Testament Standards (according to the Living Christ, the Living Anointed One), men and women who will not water down the Gospel, but have the heart of God and are more concerned about pleasing Him than pleasing men.

I have much more to say about the merging apostolic ministry and this movement of true shepherds who genuinely love and are concerned about the Body of Christ, who will fight against any evil to protect it, even the lions and bears who could in the natural easily kill a man. I have about another 12-14 pages of notes I took when I started preparing this letter to you. I will include bits and pieces later.

PART OF THE LETTER I ORIGINALLY SENT TO BROTHER TODD MALONE:

I WAS AT YOUR WEB SITE AND READ THE FOLLOWING AS A FOOTNOTE IN ONE OF MY ARTICLES:

*Note by Cathedral of Praise: The author is not saying that all ministries without an overseeing apostle are illegitimate. The Church is in transition, and apostles are in the process of emerging. All ministries can be benefited by coming under apostolic authority, but the Lord extends grace to those who have not yet been exposed to apostolic doctrine. A person is morally responsible for the level of knowledge that he has. The Spirit of the apostolic father desires that spiritual children may be adopted into the Church that they might receive the blessing of the Father; the apostles have not come to curse the orphans--condemning them for their illegitimacy, but rather, the apostles have come to extend their mantle over those who desire to receive their parental support.
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This is actually the next message that God has placed in my heart, how God uses ministry gifts even though they are immature in their calling, like Pastors called to equip 5-fold who do not yet even believe in apostles & prophets, who couldn't even train others to be New Testament Pastors themselves, considering all the Eph. 4:11 - 12 responsibilities.

God by necessity had to send immature Pastors to His sheep so that at least they would have some government over them until He restores the Apostles and Prophets. Imagine if all the people who are in ministry today had to quit their ministries until they were approved my some Apostle or a fully equipped apostolic Pastor who properly understood divine government and the appointment and ordination of 5-fold officers? Even apostles and prophets are being sent out by God even though they are not 100% where early New Testament apostles were in their authority and anointing. He has to send them out even before they are recognized and ordained by other apostolic ministries before them because ordaining apostolic networks are too scarce in these times. If some had to wait for other ministry gifts to acknowledge them before operating in their apostleship, then there would be a lot fewer apostles and prophets in use by God today.

I really think we are in the infancy of the apostolic movement, even though this movement in infancy is called to father the Church world wide. If all apostles had to be as fully mature in their calling as Early New Testament Apostles were in the Book of Acts before being used by God, then I truly believe there would be no apostolic ministry today. The father truths are in the apostles, regardless of what stage they are in the development of their office and call. God has to develop the gift from a stage of infancy until universally we are all full grown or more fully grown fathers. This thing is so new that I am sure there is no one who can claim mastery of this office and calling. God develops our gift by using us so that we can reciprocate back what we've sown, more of our apostleship and apostolic mantle. It is like on the job training.

During my last message on SPIRITUAL FATHER'S AND THE ORPHANED PATH, I really felt the prophetic spirit of Elijah on me warning those who continually reject us of the coming judgment that will begin in the house of God if they continue to be sons of those demonic spirits that murder the prophets and apostles. Of course God will extend Grace, but even Jesus had to deal more severely with the "religious leaders" who made idols of their own ideas of who God was and now today, they make idols of who they think is to govern the church by their own thinking that we are under a 3-fold government only today. Really they are not rejecting apostles and prophets, they are rejecting the One who sent us, and their reward or judgment will be according to their works.

I really feel we are in the last times when men will not endure sound doctrine but will heap up teachers for themselves who will tell them what they want to hear and not require change of their character or ministry. The Bible says that these men turn away from the truth and turn to fables. They are living in a fairy tale gospel world where the government and power of God does not exist, only the power of their own imaginations that say miracles aren't for today and apostles and prophets do not exist.

Concerning these messages, the Spirit of God charges me to deal directly with these spirits and call it what it is... they are murderers in doctrine of God's apostles and prophets. There is no polite way to put it. I think by that message that I am proving that I am not looking for a following or to exalt my own apostleship. Really what I am called to is not my main concern in the matter. The only main concern I have is that I say what the Spirit wants me to say, exactly the way He wants me to say it, according to the ability He has equipped me with in communicating His message. That is truly the only genuine way to have love for those rejecting us, to warn them of the severity of what they are doing wrong, to paint the picture in black and white as clearly as possible, and pray they come to their senses as quickly as possible. This is how Jesus and the apostle Paul dealt with the false religious leaders of their day, with sharpness and severity, but always out of love and to see them repent.