23/01/2024
BUSY AGE.
This is a busy age. People come to church and are entertained. They hear a short sermon and are dismissed, without having any time of waiting upon the Lord. They get the logos, but since they do not receive rhema, they miss out on seeing the miraculous workings of God, and begin to doubt His power.
People must come to the main sanctuary, listen attentively to the preacher, and wait upon the Lord. But they do not come and listen prayerfully to the preacher, waiting upon the Lord to receive rhema; therefore, they cannot receive the faith they need for the solutions to their problems. Their knowledge of the Bible increases as their problems increase, and though they come to church, nothing happens. So they begin to fall away and lose faith.
Another problem with many churches in this active age is that ministers are busy with too many matters. They spend hours and hours as a janitor, financier, constructor, and contractor, going in a hundred different directions.
By Saturday they are so tired that they fumble around trying to find some logos to preach on. They are so tired that they have no time to wait upon the Lord, no time to change the green grass into white milk. Their congregations are simply fed grass, and not even given the milk of the Word. This is a grave mis t a ke .
Lay persons are not the pastor’s enemies, but his friends. As did the apostles, so should the minister concentrate on prayer and the ministering of the Word of God, delegating any other type of work to his deacons, deaconesses and other lay leaders.
I follow this pattern in my church, and I dare not go up to the platform without first waiting upon the Lord and receiving the rhema God would have me give for that message. If I do not receive rhema, I will not go to the platform.
So I go up to Prayer Mountain on Saturday, crawl into a grotto, close the door, and wait there until the Holy Spirit comes and gives me the needed rhema. Sometimes I stay the whole night through, during that time praying, “Lord, tomorrow the people are coming with all kinds of problems—sickness, disease, family problems, problems in business—every type of problem that can be imagined.
“They are coming not only to hear general knowledge about You, but they are also coming to receive real solutions to their problems. If we don’t give them a living faith, rhema, then they are going to go back home with out receiving their solutions. I need to have a specific message for a specific people at a specific time.”
Then I wait until God gives me that message. When coming to the platform, I march in like a general, knowing that the message I preach is under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
After I preach, people in the congregation come to me and say, “Pastor, you preached exactly the word I needed.
I’ve got faith that my problem will be solved.” This is because I helped supply to them the rhema.
Brothers and sisters, we are not building a holy country club in the church; we deal rather with matters of life and death. If the pastor does not supply rhema to his people, then you have just a religious social club. In the social world already one can see organizations such as Kiwanis Clubs and Rotary Clubs, and their members pay a type of tithes, too.
The churches we build should be places where people get their solutions from the Lord, receive miracles for their lives, and can gain not just a knowledge about God, but get to know Him in a vital way. In order to do this, the pastor must first receive rhema.
Christians should be given time to wait upon the Lord, so that the Holy Spirit can have a full opportunity to deal with their lives and inspire them through the Scripture. The Holy Spirit can take Scripture, the “said word” of God, and apply it to a person’s heart, making it the “saying word” of God. The logos then becomes the rhema.
- Dr. David Yongi Cho ( The Fourth Dimension )
- JESUS SAVES TV
