By: Generals Jim and Deborah Green (p. 4 in Issue Three of The Tribal Call)
Introduction
CHURCH
Anyone may be excused for being a bit confused by the meaning of the word “church”; we use the word in so many ways. It means a particular building (e.g., “the church on fourth street”), a denomination or organized faith (e.g., the Reformed Church in America), and even a Sunday meeting (e.g., “Did you go to church today?”). None of these uses is particularly biblical. The church (ecclesia) is a basic NT theme, and we need to understand this meaning-filled word in its biblical sense.
In Greek culture, an ekklesia was a political assembly. By the fifth century B.C. ekklesia had come to mean an official gathering of the full citizens of a Greek city-state (polis) who were called together to make political decisions. The Greeks never used ekklesia to refer to religious fellowships.
(Expository Dictionary Of Bible Words, by Lawrence O. Richards, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI)
PRAISE GOD, the name of today’s message is Ecclesia Part 1. Now a lot of people would ask, what does a tribe have to do with our generation? What is the Tribal Call? What is God saying? What is He doing? Well, God is reaching out and proclaiming a call for His people to form as tribes, for His people to come forth in the fullness of what He desires.
You know, we have lived as a people in starvation camps. We have lived as a people deprived of the fullness of God; we have lived as a people held back from our Master, held back from our Lord. We have lived in little vacuums. We have lived in little cells and boxes, and in prison houses, prison houses that have called themselves churches and have kept God’s people separated from Him, prison houses of deadness, staleness, and stagnation. And God is saying in this hour, that this is the generation that He is going to call a people out of those cells, out of those prison houses, out of the captivity of satan and unto Himself. The only way that we can live totally for God is to be unto God as a holy nation.
For years, the Lord has been giving us tidbits. He has been giving us excerpts and glimpses of what His desire is, and His desire is to have a people who will dwell with Him in fullness. His desire is to have a people who will walk under His Lordship, who will know Him as their King, who will know Him as their sovereign, who will respect Him in every aspect of their lives.
So many people are taught disobedience by the existing religious order. They are taught disobedience. They are taught to be lazy, they are taught to be beggars, they are taught to be whores, and they are taught to be whoremongers. They are taught perverted and twisted words that are proclaimed to be the Words of God. They are given doctrines of devils. They are given bread and waters that pollute them. They are not washed in the holy waters of God. They are not taught to be a separated people, holy unto the Master. They are not taught obedience to the requirements of God.
If you look into the Word of God and go back into the Old Testament, you find that several times God laid down the law. And nowadays, people say, well, if you have any law, if you have any rules, if you have any standard, you are taking them into bondage. But, you see, that is just another form of lies spoken in hypocrisy that the false shepherds have put over the people of God to lead them into devastation, to lead them into captivity, to lead them into destruction. Because, the truth of it is, that God has always had a standard for His people. God has always had laws for His people. God has always had rules and ethics for His people to walk by. And, when we refuse that part of God, we actually refuse the safety that God has for us. Did you hear what I said? I said, we actually refuse the safety that God has for us. Because, when we are just wandering, we are not in the safety that God provides for His people. We are not in the place where God will keep His people covered. You see, a lot of people get wounded, they get devastated, and they get torn apart. And why is it so? It is because they are not walking under the covering of God.
The Lord is coming forth in this generation, and He is going to encompass us. What He is going to bring forth is a covering that is going to shield us, a covering that is going to protect us, and a covering that is going to guide us. And, it is not going to be like a covering of the former days that only protects us when we are in the house of God, or only guides us when we are listening to the preacher. But it is going to be a constancy of the Holy Ghost. It is going to be where the Holy Ghost is abiding in His people. Not just once a week on Sunday morning, or twice a week if you include Wednesday, but it is going to be a constancy of the presence of the power and the Spirit of Almighty God. It is going to be like when that cloud and fire hovered over them in the wilderness. The cloud and fire were there, but it was because of the people’s rebellion, it was because of the people’s ignorance, it was because of the people’s spiritual blindness that they did not perceive the supernatural protection of God. And this is the time that God is going to put the essence of the Holy Ghost over us continually. He desires that we will be so quickened and so alert and alive in His Spirit that we are aware of His presence and that we will walk in the fullness of the power that He has ordained. Not to where we pay some buffoon to get up and put on some religious show, and put on a circus and sideshow act, pretending that people are being healed, and delivered, pretending, pretending, pretending while the whole motive is money. It is not going to be like that. It is going to be that GOD IS IN OUR MIDST THROUGH THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST. And, when God is ready to do miracles, God is well able to do miracles, and when God is ready to bring forth teaching, God will bring forth teaching. When God is wanting to bring forth judgements and chastisements, God will bring forth judgements and chastisements. And, His people will walk in the acceptance of that, and His people will walk in obedience to that.
You see, God desires a people who are full of Him. This morning, He gave us a word wherein He asked us, “Why do you live in a teaspoon when you can bathe in the river? Why would you be desirous of taking a bath in a teaspoon when you can live in the river?” And that is what God is wanting to do right now, in this generation. He is wanting to pour out the fullness of His rivers of His life, the fullness of His rivers of hope, the fullness of His rivers of power, and the fullness of His rivers of love unto a people who would open their hearts to receive. Unto a people who would open their eyes and behold his glory, and unto a people who would open their minds beyond their little prison houses, beyond their little boxes, and beyond their little restraints that men have put upon them and reply Yes to the Lord. Unto such people, He will flow.
In this generation that we live in, people have opened their minds to drugs, and they have opened themselves up to be possessed of demons to be taken over by wicked spirits, to be taken over by perverse spirits, greed spirits, lust spirits, and every kind of foul and unclean thing. Why? Because they have opened themselves up. But when it comes to the household of faith, you will find Christians sitting back trembling, chewing their fingernails off. Christians are too busy sitting back, saying, “It must be a cult. It must be a strange doctrine. It must be a heresy because I don’t see it in the Word. I don’t see it in the Word.” Well, the problem is they have not opened their spiritual eyes to see what is in the Word. And they have not opened their spiritual minds to receive what the Lamb of God wants to give unto His people. They have not opened their spiritual hearts to receive the engrafting that cries, “Abba, Father, not my will but thine be done.”
Christians are sitting back trembling, chewing their fingernails off. Christians are too busy sitting back, saying. “It must be a cult. It must be a strange doctrine. It must be a heresy because I don’t see it in the Word. I don’t see it in the Word.”
Instead, they have lived in a little bitty box, and the preacher has said no, no, or maybe, and they don’t know what is right nor do they know what is wrong. They do not walk by the standard of God but instead they walk by the standard of perversion. They have walked by the standard of adultery. They walk by the standard of greed and lust. The preacher loves it so because he is the one that gets the money and heads down the road. He is the one who bows himself down before the idols of materialism, and bows himself down unto idols of greed and lust, and takes God’s people into captivity.
But God is putting forth His cry, the cry of deliverance, and this deliverance does not mean that you just get a few demons cast out. But this deliverance means that you are delivered from a life of captivity unto a life of freedom. The lies which the devil has sold the church is that you are only free if you are in captivity, if you are boxed up, if you are under the covering of evil men, then the lies and the liars say you are free. But the truth of it is that we are free when we are liberated from the systems of men and we are brought under the government of the Almighty God. I repeat, the government of Almighty God.
Israel was not a nation that was subject to other nations; God did not set it up that way. Israel went into captivity because of her sins, because of her hardness of heart, and her desire for other gods. But God’s original ordination for Israel was to be a separate nation, holy unto the Lord, a separated people who would be His and His alone: a people who would not bow unto the gods of the heathen, who would not bow unto idols, but would bow unto Him. He did not desire a people caught in abominable practices and vileness and wickedness, but He desired a people who would be clean and holy and a glory unto His name.
Now we are meant to be a Holy Nation. We are meant to be the TRIBE OF GOD ALMIGHTY. We are meant to be a separated people who live under the Sovereign, who live unto the King, not the systems of men, not the religious order that is covered in filthiness, vileness, and pollutedness, but we are meant to be a people who will obey God in every aspect of our lives.
God dictated to His people, He dictated in reference to their clothing, to their habits and methods of cleanliness and hygiene, in reference to their food. He told them what was clean, what was unclean, and which things they were not to touch. He dictated their toilet habits, and He dictated their sex life. He told them what was abomination. We are such worshipers of sex in this generation. I said it in the 1980’s, that the day would come when they would make images of sex parts and bow down to them. The day has come – the day has come. God does not want His people caught in sex idolatry bondage, and that is why God dictated to His people that they would be free from that bondage. A lot of people will say, “Stay out of my bedroom!” But God gets personal with His people – do you understand? The Word says, to the dividing asunder of the bones and the marrow. When you look at the marrow in the bone, it is inside and it is tight up against the bone. And the Holy Ghost will divide the marrow from the bone. That is how precisely God desires to rule our lives.
Now all these areas I have been touching on are areas where God desires obedience of His people. God’s people are sick. God’s people are very, very vexed of devils. “The people of God” are in captivity to lusts. God’s people are in captivity to material bondage. They are in captivity to the world, which tells them where they can go, how they can go, and why they can go. God’s people are in captivity to wicked shepherds; they are in terrible, terrible captivity. A lot of God’s people are totally backslidden: they have gone back and bowed to the devil and taken on satan’s covering in all of these areas. But, if you tell somebody, “Straighten up your act up here or there,” they are so rebellious that they won’t do it, declaring that no one is going to take them into captivity and bondage. They already have chains around their necks, and they already have handcuffs on their hands, and they are already bowing down and licking up the filth of Sodom, and they are saying, “Nobody is going to take me into captivity; nobody is going to take me into bondage.”
Now, the point that I am getting to is this: God is the One who is giving the Tribal Call. He is saying, “I want a holy people. I want a holy nation. I want a people who are willing to see that My way is righteousness and that My highway is holiness, and who are willing to separate themselves from the vile and come into the precious and walk therein.” It’s God who is giving the call, and we have got to stop being rebellious children, sottish brats, who find an excuse on every hand for disobedience. We have got to become a people of a willing heart, a people who are willing to be molded, who are willing to obey. A people who will say, yes, yes, yes, your way is righteousness, your way is life, and your way is holiness.
You need to talk to yourself when self rises up and discourages you. You need to refute self and declare that you will do what God wants and what God desires. And declare that what God wants is what will bring life and covering and strength. I don’t want to be like the deadbeats who mourn over the fact that God moved in 1906, but I want to know what God is doing right now, and I want to be in line with that. I want to know that I have heard the call and answered the call and that I was obedient unto the end. Don’t think that after you lead others that you cannot be led astray. So many pastors settle for laziness, so-called ministers of the gospel settle for death – they settle for a comfortable niche. They settle for a place where they can rock in their rocking chair until they die.
If we follow God in this generation, God has given us a promise that we are going to see a most exciting outpouring. A lot of people are saying, “Oh, if only we could see the book of Acts,” but you know what they want to see about the book of Acts? They want to see a few healings, but they don’t want to see Ananias and Sapphira. And, most of all, you know what they don’t want to see? All things in common. Yes, all things in common, that is what people don’t want to see. You can hear, “Oh, I love you brother. I love you sister. You know I really do love you. It doesn’t matter to me that you live in a shack and I live in a mansion. I still love you. Oh, Lord, if only we could see your power, we could build a fifty thousand member church.” If you want to see the book of Acts, then you better be ready for judgment of God, you had better be ready for chastisement and the correction of God, and most of all, you had better be ready for… ALL THINGS COMMON.
We are so greedy in this generation, so covetous, so lustful. Everything is for me, for myself, and for ME ONLY! We say we want to see God move; we want to see the power of God; we want the manifestations of the glory of God. But when it gets down to the real requirements, nobody wants to pay. There is a hope: God has said He will have a people; He will have a tribe. God does not lie. If God has to bring them in from all around the world, God will do it because God is faithful.
God will have a Spirit people, and while men and women are foolishly arming themselves in the flesh, and storing up victuals and weapons. God is putting His Spirit power into a people who will know their God and obey His commands to them. When we are talking about the Tribe of God, we are not talking about survivalists, but we are talking about a people who move in the Spirit and walk in the fullness of God whereby His power is revealed.
The Message
It is exciting because God’s economics are flawless, and His ecclesiastical order is flawless, but we have been blinded to that order. We have been blinded through centuries and generations to that order. If we truly go back to the book of Acts, and we return to all things common, as one people praying together to see the power of God manifest, we will see God do miracles through His apostles all around the world. When we review the New Testament, we find that the communal order did not stop with the book of Acts, but that was meant to be the blueprint of the new Ecclesiastical order. Then somehow, men perverted it, and changed the blueprint into something which they call “the Church.” The word “Church” is actually nothing more than a derivative which means the home of an important person where people met together. But, because of the twisting of mens’ interpretations and understandings, this concept became accepted as Church, when originally, God intended His people to be in communities, living and working together, communal ingatherings whereby He would rule over them. False teachings and false coverings keep God’s people from developing in all that He has for them, and consequently, the circumventing of the intended New Testament order has kept God’s people malnourished and starved in true spiritual nutrition and development.
We have been taught a false concept, and that concept is the Church! Everyone thinks that a church is a building, a social structure where men and women gather together once or twice a week, or every month, and that represents their commitment to God. But actually the Church, or God’s community, is far more than that. It is those who are actively living, doing, and practicing what God wants in their minds, their bodies, and their hearts. The Church is comprised of living stones and is far bigger than any building. As we have already shown, the word “Church” is a misconception that has replaced God’s intention for the New Testament order. The actual word in the Greek is “Ecclesia,” which was wrongly translated 112 times as “church” in the King James version of the Bible. Now, the word “Ecclesia” is correctly defined as follows: “the called-out ones, summoned, a select civil body.” What, then, did the writers of the New Testament mean when they used the word “Ecclesia” to describe a Christian body of people? Obviously, they meant the same thing: a body of Christians called out of the Roman and Judean systems to come together into a separate civil community or tribe. The misuse of the terms relating to New Testament order have actually perpetrated centuries of confusion.
But, then, why would the “Church of this century” want such truths revealed when they make billions of dollars off of the flock of God? Why would churches want to lose their huge, powerful, economic empires just for the sake of truth and loyalty to God? They do not, therefore, God’s people are kept in ignorance and spiritual blindness, which results in spiritual death and sickness, and the greedy, money grabbing, religious machines called churches can go on with their calloused exploitation of human kind.
A midwife told me when she was in Africa that the people she worked with believed if they rubbed dirt on the baby after it was born that it was good for it. Of course, the baby receive the filth and disease in the dirt. The Church is just as guilty! Let the newborns come along and they rub them in the filth of the world, in the disease of Sodom, and they say it is good for them. But God’s intention was and is for His children to be birthed into Spiritual communities, where they can be washed by the Word, not rubbed in the filth of Sodom and Egypt!
As we have just read, the Greek word “Ecclesia” correctly defined means the “called-out ones.” This word was used to indicate a select, called, elect body of people. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, in the New Testament the word “Ecclesia” is the only word translated as “Church.” If we study Greek history, we find that “Ecclesia” was the name given to the governmental assembly of the city of Athens, duly convoked and called out by the proper officers, and possessing all political power including juridical function. So when they used the word, “Ecclesia,” it implied that God’s people were meant to exercise political power over themselves. They were to be an autonomous body of Christians under no king but Jesus, under no other jurisdiction but that of Jesus. We are not meant to go to the state and ask, “Can we have a church? Can we be a called-out body for God?” That is utter stupidity. The state doesn’t ordain us, neither does a bunch of theological, brainwashed church “elders,” but God does; God calls! Obviously, what was going on in Greece during the New Testament times bore no resemblance to the modern Church, so, the order that was originally ordained by God has no resemblance to the hideous mess men have created called the “Church.” The called-out body that God ordained, the Body of Christ, was a rule itself under the power of God with its own power to select, elect, and judge according to the percepts and commands of God.
In the Oxford English Dictionary, considered the standard for the English language, the word “Ecclesia” means, “a summoned, convoked assembly, especially the Athenians general assembly, later the regular word for Church.” Thus, this again confirms than an Ecclesia was originally a select body. What then did the writers of the New Testament mean when they used the word “Ecclesia” to describe a Christian body of people? Obviously, they meant the same thing, a body of people called out of the worldly systems to come together into separate, civil communities, a people under no king but Jesus, with no man to rule them, only Christ. Now that is the reason why these same Christians got into trouble with kings and rulers and were crucified and martyred, because they dropped the natural kings and adhered to their spiritual king, Jesus. Now, you see this is giving us the true definition, the true meaning that God ordained for the New Testament order. He did not establish the “Sunday-Box God.” That monster is man’s creation. God established a new Spiritual community, a new Tribe, wherein Jesus Christ was to have the total authority over the Christians’ lives. It was meant to be a complete, independent, government ruled by the Lord. That is what an Ecclesia represents, not just some religious social club meeting on weekends.
…the true meaning that God ordained for the New Testament order. He did not establish the “Sunday-Box God.” That monster is man’s creation. God established a new Spiritual community, a new Tribe, wherein Jesus Christ was to have the total authority over the Christians’ lives. It was meant to be a complete, independent, government ruled by the Lord.
The Bible does not give any indication that the Church would replace the Ecclesia, nor does the scripture indicate that the word describing God’s plan would be changed to please men. There is no scriptural authority for Christians to build churches, attend churches, or support churches. Those are inventions of men and their imaginations. Churches, as they are currently, are ungodly organizations designed for and by the heathen, and ultimately ruled by the ungodly. When you have to bow unto the state to do the work of God, then God is no longer your Head. I know, I made that mistake, and God allowed me to be grievously judged by the state because I had foolishly subjected myself to that ungodly power. We are meant to be in subjection to God and God alone, and we should be looking for and working towards the establishment of God’s intended order of this dispensation, the TRIBAL CALL, whereby His people, His Ecclesia, hear the call and come out and come under His domain. It’s only two thousand years later. Isn’t it time we chose to obey God?
We have centuries of religious garbage piled on top of God’s true concept of the Ecclesia, centuries of garbage laid against what God’s community, His Tribe, is really all about. Today, we have a box god, man-made organized religion, where they use God’s name and His terminology, but they refuse to obey Him. They use half truths and half lies, but they will never walk into the fullness which God desires. In the beginning, God wanted purity, a loyal Tribe of true believers. Yet through the centuries, the pure Tribe that God began was perverted by evil, religious men who changed the truth into lies for their own gain, and deceived the people in order to obtain kingdoms of power in this earth. The Catholic Church, which was the first harlotry, perverted the original order tremendously. Then came the Protestants who in the beginning were looking for truth, but after a while settled for the same religious lies as the Catholics and gave up on the original desire for purity.
In the beginning of the Protestant revolution, men and women were rebelling against the religious ritualism which was passing itself off as God. As the revolution progressed, so did the need to migrate in order to escape the persecution which had become intolerable. Many individuals and groups of individuals sought refuge and religious freedom in this nation, seeking to establish a true Ecclesia or community of believers and followers of the Lord. But, the purity did not last long and the same power seeking, religious men began to build their boxes all over again and call them “god.” So, the garbage came back, and now, anywhere you go you will find confusion, delusion, and deadness, and it’s all referred to as the Church.
But what was really meant to be since the beginning of the New Testament was the Ecclesia, which is an actively alive people who are in tune with the Living God, moving according to His commands and following His Spirit of life. The true Ecclesia which God intended, and which He still desires, is the Spirit people of God, who would live in the Spirit community with the Lord. During the period of the King James translators, there were shifts of meaning, and the original concept of Ecclesia was done away with and replaced with the concept of the Church, which has ended up to mean nothing more than a body of believers who met once or twice a week in a specified location, rather than a community, a Tribe of believers who lived and met together continually for the purpose of the gospel. What has evolved as the “Church” was not what God had originally planned at all for His people. The original plan was laid out in the book of Acts, but man made a big mess by trying to improve on God. In the Church of today, the members basically live for their own selves, giving to God only a small portion of their time, their energy, and their resources. On the other hand, the Ecclesia is committed to fulfilling the purposes of God from its very foundation, and the time, energy, and resources of its members all belong to God and are returned to God for His purposes. The basic motives and desires of the two forces are obvious: the Church is self seeking and self worshiping, only using the name of the Lord. The Ecclesia is used for the furtherance of God’s desires and purposes through a people who are dedicated unto Him. When people are joined together in a true Ecclesia, they do not live for themselves, but they live for Him. God is the absolute God, not a compromising God. He does not mix half truths, half lies, and say it’s all true. God is absolute and He is a dictator. This is the very thing which men have sought to destroy throughout the centuries. They have sought to destroy the absolutism of God, and to make God’s people fearful of accepting the absolute authority of God over their lives.
Unfortunately, the Christians have chosen to listen to self and demons rather than to God. They have preferred comforts and their own way before God’s way. But the real truth is that the Church is weak, ineffective, compromising, and diseased. When people are submitted and joined to a true Ecclesia, they are under the authority of God as their dictator who has the Lordship over their lives for His purposes rather than theirs. So the difference is easy to perceive: the Church equals selfish religiosity, while the Ecclesia equals an abandonment of self for the kingdom of God.
The devil has done everything to keep the truth from God’s people because he knows the power that is in community, and furthermore, he knows that there is even more power in a God-centered community that is in obedience to God. There is absolute, irrevocable power in absolute obedience. When God’s people obey Him, He stands with them. The only way to have that absolute obedience is to let God have absolute control over your life. What calls itself the Church today is a rebellious entity because it refuses to let God exercise absolute authority and control over it, and instead, chooses to follow it’s own mind. The consequence is spiritual fraud. Christians today are liars, only using His name but not obeying Him. It’s like writing a check that you do not have the money to cover, or using someone else’s checkbook without their permission. Whenever anyone does that spiritually, using His name without the substance to back it up, it is spiritual fraud.
Few people are willing to be in absolute obedience to God, that is among those who are claiming that they are His. We are living in a time when spiritual fraud is at an all time high and people are more interested in rendering absolute obedience to the state than they are in rendering absolute obedience to God. The Church as it stands today, has literally become a state instrument, and men and women are bowing down unto the unrighteousness of the Sodomites and the Egyptians through their connections with statism. Now, the true Ecclesia, the community of the Lord is not going to be bowing unto any state or government but unto the Lord. There are many who are recognizing that they do not need to be registered with the government, and some of them have gone to prison for their beliefs. But aside and apart from the government’s control, there is a control which we gain in the Spirit if we will give complete obedience to God Almighty. In this hour, the state is being ruled by demonic powers, and when men and women choose to make that their head, they render obedience unto disobedience. As believers, our first allegiance is to God and His standards of righteousness. When we stand with Him and Him alone, rendering Him absolute obedience, He is our strength, our safety, our hope. When He sets us free, He does not desire us to put ourselves back under our former yoke of bondage.
What we are expounding on is the Ecclesia, God’s called-out people. I know that there are fragments of truth taught in these cracker boxes called churches, the organized religious suckchildren of big brother. Here and there, they have fragments which they may offer in their paltry provisions. But the truth is, they are bound by their head which is the state, and they are not living in community. They are not living in the true Ecclesia that God ordained. God wants His people to live and abide by the original order set down in the book of Acts. He wants them to be going forth in every aspect where He is their head and their Lord. In the beginning stages of the early Church, obviously the struggle became manifest as Caesar came into conflict with the purposes of God by persecuting the true believers and trying to stop the communities of God. Why is it that fleshly power opposed and attempted to stop the community of the Lord? Because there was power in that community, and it threatened the heathen. That never changes. Whenever a truly cohesive group joins together, the civil powers are threatened. But the truth remains that there has begun a revolution in the Spirit, and many are going to throw off the shackles of false teachings and be made free in Christ Jesus.
In Acts 19, verse 32, you will find the word “assembly,” and this word in Greek is also “Ecclesia.” Now, as you can see, they did not use the word “Church” in this instance because it would have been an obvious mistake. Only three times in the New Testament do you find the word “assembly,” and each time you will find that the Greek word is “Ecclesia.” When it was used in this context, it meant an assembly, or civil gathering. It says in verse 32, “for the assembly was confused and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together.” My point in mentioning this is to show that the translators of the King James version were fully aware that the word “Ecclesia” could and was used to mean something other than the “Church” concept which was prevalent in their day.
Paul used the word “Ecclesia” because he knew the meaning he intended to convey, and it’s obvious that he was not talking about a nobleman’s house or building, but rather a body of people. Paul knew, and we know, that the Church was not really a building but the believers in Christ joined together. Although more and more people are coming to accept that concept of His body, very few are willing to live that concept, that is to be joined together with all things in common. Why is it that this concept is so difficult to put into action today? Why is it so difficult to see a body of believers in a community, living and working for the Lord? Could it be because Christians are too selfish and would rather keep God in a box where they could go and visit Him once or twice a week instead of facing Him everyday?
That is how far it has gone people, that the Church has become a little “selfish entity,” where everyone only visits the god they have invented once a week, then the rest of the time they live for themselves, and by themselves without anyone intruding into their space. They do whatever they want to do in the world, flirting and flaunting themselves, indulging their carnality with all the world has to offer. But in the Ecclesia, things are different. Why? Because in an Ecclesia, the business is the Lord’s, and you are working at that and being ruled by Him. That makes all the difference in the world, when God is the King and ruler instead of man. In this hour, God is calling a people to come under His Lordship, under His domain. He is calling forth His tribes of men, women, and children who will serve Him.
When Jesus assigned the twelve apostles, why did He pick twelve? He could have picked fourteen, fifteen, or twenty-five. Why is it that He chose twelve? It was because He was forming a new government. He brought forth the twelve to represent the new order, the order of the Holy Ghost. The new order was a Spiritual community whereby people were meant to be Spiritual and be joined together. We are meant to be a Spirit-filled and directed people, under the Headship and dictatorship of Jesus Christ. That was the original order that was established: the Ecclesia, the concept of His body joined together in community for the purpose of His Kingdom.
This concept causes satan to tremble, that a people will rise up who will abandon their rights to their lives and yield those lives totally to their sovereign, the Lord Jesus Christ, that His power and glory would be manifest through them. The thought of a people saying no to Caesar and yes to Christ is something which the devil despises. Preachers today are more afraid of the state than they are of God. Isn’t that the truth, that preachers and laity alike fear man, and the political powers of men, more than they fear the Lord. Furthermore, most people today are more afraid of losing their money than they are afraid of losing their souls for eternity.
Preachers today are more afraid of the state than they are of God. Isn’t that the truth, that preachers and laity alike fear man, and the political powers of men, more than they fear the Lord.
I want to be under His dictatorship, the Headship of Jesus Christ. No one is forcing me. I need to be under His dictatorship in order to have my brain washed. Most Christians are screaming, “Don’t brainwash me!”. Why are they afraid of being brainwashed? Why don’t they want the Lord to wash their brains, that is purify their thoughts? Because they love their little box god, where they can control the rest of their lives the way they want to. They live in self indulgence and selfishness, and they love it so. But life in the community is shared; it is not for the promotion of self but for the promotion of the Lord, where you live for Jesus continually with all things in common.
Many nowadays have the assembly concept, but they are not living as an Ecclesia. They are still only living in the box-god realm; they are defrauding God in a sense because they are not giving the Lord their all by allowing Him to be their sovereign king. Now is God’s timing for His Tribe, and this is what He is telling us that He wants, but it has been covered over for generations. Why? Because the Church has gained her power in keeping God’s people separated from Him! The Church would rather have their state and federal approvals than the approval of God. For the sad truth is that the modern Church fears man but does not fear God! Study true Christian history, whenever a people have sought to serve the Living God completely, the half-hearted fakes have always persecuted them through accusation and slander. God desires us to be His love slaves, subject unto His rule, obedient unto Him. Unfortunately, the half-hearts only want their way, not God’s way, so they will accuse and slander those who are willing to walk the road of abandonment to the Lord.
Most Christians in this generation live in man-made prison houses called churches. But the Ecclesia is not this at all, for the very essence of the word tells us that we are meant to be a holy nation, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. The word “nation” translated means a tribe, a clan, a peculiar people. God wants us to be that so that we may shine forth the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. The Amplified Bible says that we are meant to set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of God. Is this found in the Church, in the realm of the little box-god? No, all that is found is vain and profane prattle, talk, talk, talk. In this hour, God is saying to His true followers, “Walk the talk!” He is sick and tired of continual hot-air blowing talkers who are no where near where God wants them to be in the reality of their lives. When people claim that they love the Lord but they do everything that the devil’s crowd does, they are liars. God is sick of the hypocrisy and double mindedness. He is calling forth a people who will love Him and be willing to come under His command. He is saying, “I want a people I can call my own. I want a tribe to myself. I want a people who will love me as their king and serve me completely as their chief, and not serve their own selves.” He is the Lion out of the Tribe of Judah, and if we are truly going to abide in Him, then we must be as He is; we must be a tribe, a people called out, separated unto our Master.
This is His hour, and His calling is going forth. Do not deny Him but hearken to Him, and bow to His way and not your way. Choose to serve Him with total dedication and abandonment, and be in His Tribe, His chosen, His people. Do not remain in the boxes wherein men have sought to imprison you, but come fully into the Lord’s desire and see His glory come forth in His people for the chosen generation!
I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you quickly: but in case I am delayed, you will know how you should conduct yourself in the house (domain) of God, which is the Ecclesia of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. I Timothy 3: 14-15