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Nov 30 2014
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The Church

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There are quite a few believers today that have developed a bad taste for, and even a bitter attitude toward the church of Jesus Christ. Though it is wrong to have such feelings, I can understand why some do. They have been let down by the less than Christian antics that go on in the church. Combine that with the division and lack of power in the church, it can leave saints fed up with the whole “church thing.” No matter how justified a Christian may feel about their bad attitude toward the church, the church is still Christ’s anointed vessel that He left with the commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel.

 

For many people, the first thought that comes to their minds when they hear the word “church” is of a building with four walls and a steeple with a cross on it. That is what is called a church building, but what is in that building is really what determines if it is a church. The building can be filled with religious people, and not be a real church. It can even be filled with people that proclaim some kind of allegiance to Christ, and still not be a real church. The church, by biblical definition, is a people, a called out people; called out from darkness into His marvelous light. It is a gathering of true born again believers.

 

You may be surprised to know that the word “church(es)” is found 114 times in the New Testament. The first time the church is mentioned is by Jesus in Mt. 16:18. It is there that Jesus says, “..I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” How it must offend Jesus for any Christian to have a bad attitude against His church that He is still building. If you are in, or were a part of a church that Christ is not allowed to do the building, then I can understand your frustration, but that does not give any Christian a right to be angry with Christ’s church. Be mad at the devil and the religious crowd if you will, but love the church of Jesus Christ.

 

It was the church that the Lord added to daily; it was the church that great persecution came against; it was the church that prayed unceasing for Peter when he was in prison. There were prophets and teachers in the church; elders were ordained in every church. Paul told the elders from Ephesus to, “feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). Did you get that? Jesus purchased the church with His own blood! It was in the church that God set first apostles, second prophets and third teachers. We are to seek to excel in the gifts to edify the church. Christ loves the church and is looking for a glorious church. Jesus is the head of the body, which is the church.  The church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the truth. The seven letters John wrote were to the seven churches in Asia. Yes, the church is God’s chosen vessel. “Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus,,,” (Eph. 3:21).  Jesus is not done with His church yet, and neither should you be.

 

A few years back we were told by a false prophet named Harold Camping that the Lord was going to come on a certain date. I forgot the date, probably because I paid no attention to it. As you can see, the Lord did not come.  This man has been telling Christians for years to leave the churches. If he would be talking about the dead Spirit grieving churches, I couldn’t agree with him more. However, his message is that God is no longer in the church, so you should get out. Now where does he get off saying such a thing? If the church is the body of Christ, and Jesus is the head, how could a real believer leave the church or the body of Christ? Wouldn’t that be like your arm deciding it didn’t want to be a part of your body anymore? You can live without your arm, but your arm cannot live without being attached to your body. If it is the church that the gates of hell will not prevail against, why on earth would I want to leave her? Why would I want to get out there like a stray sheep and subject myself to danger? Like it or not, we are still in the church age. We are still a people that need to assemble together. It only takes two people that come together in the name of the Lord to produce a church. If that was all the bigger the church was – two saints of God – the devil would still not be able to prevail against it. That is because the church is that vessel that Christ ordained to give glory to God. We are not to be angry with the church, and we are not to avoid the church. We are to find the real church, unite with it and give glory to God. We are to love and edify the church.

 

Saint of God, whether you are one that is frustrated with the church or not, whether you quit going to church or not, be encouraged. One more time the Lord is going to pour out His Spirit on the church. There is yet to be a latter rain that will fall. God is going to bring a distinction between the true and the false church; He is going to baptize His true church with power. There will be an increased love for the brethren and a unity that is of the Spirit.

 

The Lord has put a vision in my heart a few years ago to believe God and pray for a uniting of the remnant believers all over the state of Wisconsin, and to see the power return to the church, the true church. God will yet, have a church in this generation that will once again be a vessel that will impact our society and bring glory to God. Will you pray with me, will you believe with me? God bless you.

Nov 29 2014
1

The Remnant Church

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THE REMNANT CHURCH

By: Terry Fischer

Back in the fall of 2006, is when I first began to realize that the thoughts I had, about the power of God and the unity of the saints, to be a reality in Christ’s church again, was more than a daydream but was a vision the Lord gave to me. Jesus Christ loves His church and He wants her to once again be that vessel for His glory that can turn the whole world upside down. That was the testimony of the early church. However, today the church is scattered into hundreds of fragments. I read once that there are over 900 denominations in America. Paul asked the Corinthians, “Is Christ divided?” I guess our American church would have to say, yes He is. You can be certain this lack of unity is a terrible testimony of the church and is an offense to Almighty God. The lack of power in this present day church is another bad testimony against us. It is evident that we really do not depend on the Holy Spirit or believe in the power that was given on the day of Pentecost. We even have churches today that boast that they don’t believe God heals anymore, or they don’t believe that God can save through the power of His gospel but instead offer up all kinds of worldly gimmicks and programs as a substitute. As far as I’m concerned we don’t even need evangelism courses. Whatever happened to “..I will make you fishers of men?” Jesus made Peter a “fisher of men” when He went back to heaven and sent the blessed Holy Spirit to come and endue men with power to reach their Jerusalem and Judea and so on. I am not telling you anything new, oh saint of God, but it could almost seem like it, because, it seems you have to search far and wide today to find a preacher and a handful of saints that believe their bible as it stands. We excuse away our lack of power and we try to agree to disagree, which by the way is not a biblical principle.

I said all this to tell you about the vision the Lord gave me for what I call “remnant believers” or the “remnant church” here in the state of Wisconsin. God made it very real to me that he is going to revive His remnant church, those faithful believers that have remained steadfast to Christ and the word of God in spite of all the apathy and worldliness that has come into many of our churches. Some may not have even remained so faithful, but it is in their heart to really serve God if there would only be a very real presence of Christ amongst a true New Testament body of believers. Some remnant believers are living in revival, some have grown disgruntled, some are hanging on in their dead church while others have had it with church. Some are happy, some are sad and there are even some that are mad. Whatever condition these believers are in, God is ready to do a powerful work amongst His remnant church. One of the main reasons people despise church and Christians have given up on it is because so much of the church is just a form of religion, “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof:..” There is so much politics, so much structure, and way to many tares in the church for her even to be called a church. Something we forget so often is that a church isn’t a building, it is a people, a called out people, that come together to worship God in Spirit and truth. When you got saved, you became a member of the body of Christ and therefore you become part of the church. We are not to avoid church, neither are we to attend one for religious sake. The church is God’s vessel to speak to this fallen world. Whenever the church gets together it is to encourage and strengthen the saints. Then after they are set ablaze by a Spirit led and Spirit powered meeting, they will bust open the doors of the church and shout, look out devil, here we come. Hallelujah!

So, back to the vision of the remnant church. As I said, God has stirred me and my church, which is called, THE CHURCH IN WISCONSIN, to start praying for and believing God to revive, gather together and empower His remnant church here in Wisconsin. We have been praying for that since the spring of 2007 when I shared with my church the vision the Lord gave me. This is His desire, He wants His church to give Him the glory He so deserves. As long as man gets the credit, man gets the glory and God is out of the picture. This work that God is going to do is first of all, so huge that no single man or church could carry out such a work. He will get the glory. Second of all, it will be a work that the Holy Spirit will do in individual believers all over this state whose heart is perfect toward the Lord.

This vision is likened to the valley of dry bones found in the 37th chapter of Ezekiel. Those very dry bones can be likened to the dry and dead churches in our state. God caused Ezekiel to circle around those bones to take notice of their dry state, not so he would get cynical about them or throw up his hands in disgust but that he would get the burden and desire to see something impossible happen. Same with you and me, we must not get a bitter or cynical attitude against Christ’s church but instead believe God enough to say YES, when He asks us, “can these bones live?” What were the instructions that God gave to Ezekiel to bring those bones to life? God said to prophesy, to preach to those bones and then to prophesy to the wind. Yes saints of God, that is what God is going to use today to revive His remnant church. “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” (1Co 1:18) So with this mandate, my church and I have set out to travel around this state to hold revival meetings, believing that God will use them to strengthen and gather His remnant church together.

Nov 29 2014
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WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS, THERE IS LIBERTY

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WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS, THERE IS LIBERTY

By: Terry Fischer

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

II Corinthians 3:17

One of the last things a lost sinner would ever consider a Christian to be, is a person who has a great deal of liberty. To a heathen, being a Christian means bondage to rules; it means that they can’t do any of the things they love. Think about it: How can anyone that loves sin understand that it is bondage? They don’t understand that once a person becomes born again, their desires change. Some things they used to like to do, they will hate; some things they used to hate, they will love to do. This is the work of the Spirit, and this work, which is called sanctification, will continue in the believer’s life.

Only the believer in Jesus Christ can ever understand how a person can turn from living for their own ways and desires, surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and walk around totally liberated. A woman, who loves God, will experience much more liberty than any of the top leading ladies in the woman’s “liberation” movement. This world will never understand that in the Lord, surrender means freedom, and self-promotion means bondage. What can be awfully frustrating is when Christians don’t understand it either. The reason they don’t get it is because they don’t experience the liberty in serving Christ. The more we hang onto our carnal life, the more in bondage we are to it. The more we lay down our lives, the greater the liberty we will walk in.

Just like living in sin is not true liberty, religious rules are a source of bondage. Men have an attraction to rules. Liberty in the Spirit is what is missing in a lot of religious organizations. Some of these organizations started in the Spirit, but have since turned to the flesh. Paul rebuked the Galatians for the same thing;

“Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”

Galatians 3:3

One thing is certain. According to II Corinthians 3:17, if the Spirit is present in our midst, there will be a liberty that frees us from being bound to manmade religious rules. I want to tell you a true story of an encounter I had with a group that had religious rules. This experience, though it had a form of godliness, was the worst demonic experience I have ever encountered.

Some years ago, a young man from my church, named Tim, and myself, were planning to go to Alabama for a camp meeting. Some men we knew here in Wisconsin, invited us to stop by their revival meetings they were having in Ohio the same week we would be making our way down to Alabama. They said if we would attend they would put us up for the night. We decided to head out the day before our meeting started so we could stop at their meeting. After the meeting we greeted a few of the men we had previously met back in Wisconsin, and we were greeted by others that were in attendance. We were then introduced to the family with whom we would be spending the night. We followed them to their house, which was quite a ways out in the country.

After we arrived we had a meal with them. There was some fellowship at the table, but not the real koinonia that Tim and I were accustomed to. Not long after we ate, we were shown the bedrooms where we would be sleeping. In order for Tim and me to have our own rooms, they had their two children share a room. Before I got comfortable I went into the room where the two children were, and I was talking and joking with them. Then I went back to my room. I was wearing a long sleeve dress shirt and a pair of dress pants. I took off my shirt and had a white T shirt underneath. I grabbed my tooth brush and tooth paste and headed to the bathroom, only to find it was occupied. So in dress pants and a T shirt, I went back to visit the two children. Upon entering their room their eyes got really wide. I said something like, “are you afraid of me now?” Then I went back to my room to wait until I could get in the bathroom.

While I was standing there in my room, the man of the house (notice I have not called him brother?) approached me with a very mean spirit and dropped this bomb on me. He said, “Listen, we don’t show our arms around this house. If my children see your arms they will be offended.” I was devastated when he said that to me. It was too late; they already saw my arms. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “I can appreciate that.” I don’t know why I said that because I did not appreciate it at all. Why didn’t someone tell me they had this rule, which I never found in the bible? I could have either submitted to their rule or turned down the offer to stay at their house, but it was too late. I felt terrible. Every part of me felt like I violated their household.

Let me tell you, it was hard to fall asleep that night. Tim and I were up early the next morning and left without any breakfast. We headed out to the camp meeting in Alabama. Throughout the day, I was haunted by this event that took place. I felt a very heavy condemnation hanging over me. When I got to the meeting in Alabama that evening, I shared my experience with some other ministers that were there. However, condemnation was still hanging over me. Nothing changed by the next morning. After breakfast I called an evangelist friend and told him what happened. He told me that it was the spirit of heaviness that the bible talks about. “..the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;..”(Isaiah 61:3)

I immediately understood that this whole experience was demonic. It was as if demons had followed Tim and I out of that house in Ohio and traveled with us in my car. I went back into the church, had a few ministers pray for me, and the condemnation immediately left.

The devil is very protective of one of his greatest deceptions: RELIGION. He gets awfully angry if you don’t obey his rules. I learned two things that day: the difference between conviction and condemnation, and that the demonic forces are very protective over their religion.

Saint of God, understand this, God convicts, the devil condemns. Religion is demonic bondage, but the Spirit is liberty. Not liberty to sin, but liberty to not have to obey sin. If the devil can’t trap you in sin, he will try to trap you with religious rules. Your deliverance is in the presence of the Spirit of God; “..where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)