Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (13 page)

As the Lord walked over and stood next to me, Joan of Arc had walked to the other side of the church sanctuary and stood next to a woman whom I met just the previous day. This woman had flown into town to attend the conference. She was a fellow minister of the Gospel who lived in a different state. About the only thing I knew about this woman was her name and that she was a minister from out of state, but no other personal information. I watched as Joan of Arc looked at the Lord to get a confirming nod that she was standing next to the right person. The Lord gave a nod with His head that indicated, “Yes.” She also looked at me and smiled. This redeemed saint was radiant and the glory of God was all over her. Her golden-brown hair came down to her shoulders and she wore a beautiful white robe with gold embroidery. She seemed to be almost transparent, as if she were made of light.

That night I taught the Word of God for about an hour before I began to minister in the Holy Spirit. As I moved into the time of ministry in the spirit, I told this woman, in front of all those attending the conference, that a Joan of Arc anointing was
being placed upon her life. I then prayed over her and spoke a blessing over her life.

After the conference was over, I was relaxing in a back room, fellowshipping with the director who was in charge of the video recording for the conference. This kind man was a brother in the Lord who has a team that travels all over America and does live audio and video recording for Christian conferences. He shared with me how just a few months earlier in the year he was recording a conference for the woman that I had just ministered to prophetically. He said my prophetic word was right on. He told me he had personally recorded her conference and the theme for it was, “The Joan of Arc Anointing.”

What is a Joan of Arc anointing? It is an anointing to die to your own desires at an early age and thus touch the nations with an uncompromising stand for the Gospel. Many people are receiving a portion of this mantle. Before the second coming of the Lord, every mantle that has ever been bestowed by the Spirit of God throughout church history will rest upon the end-time Church.

Again we see a mantle being released. Once a mantle is received, then it means added responsibility. There will never be a substitute for good, hard work. I know the mantles that the Lord has placed upon my life. But don’t think for a minute that I just walk out and start ministering and don’t spend any time in prayer or Bible study. You can’t build a ministry on just a gift
or a testimony. Those who try to do that will fail in the long-run. I’ve committed to build the ministry the Lord has given me on preaching and teaching the Word of God. Signs and wonders follow the Word. Everything works great when you put the Word first.

A very dear friend of mine is a world class composer and symphony conductor. He has studied music all his life and knew at the age of four that he would be a composer and conductor. He has currently written a beautiful oratorio that puts certain biblical chapters to music, much like what Handel did with the masterpiece known as “The Messiah.” This friend of mine has had visions given by the Holy Spirit of being taken up to Heaven. There in Heaven, he has met Bach, Beethoven, Handel, and other great composers. Of course, most of the great musicians, scientists, and doctors of history past were devoted Christians. My friend shared with me how during his heavenly visions he would receive tips, suggestions, and instruction from these saints to help complete the music he has written. I have heard previews of this music and it causes one to get “goose bumps” upon hearing it. While my friend does have a mantle to create beautiful classical music that glorifies God, he still has to spend hours in his private studio to put it all together. Even with an anointing, there is a lot of work involved. He is very faithful to work hard to see God’s Kingdom expanded through the field of musical arts that he is called to.

Make the most of a mantle by putting your whole heart into what God has called you to do. Determine to be the best in your specific field. Dismiss any thoughts of failure and why you can’t succeed. Work hard and expect good things to happen to you.

Go far above and beyond the normal call of duty. As you do so, doors of increased anointing will open and you will be proven to be an invaluable asset to the Lord and to those around you.

1.
Golden Grain
by John Wright Follette is public domain;
Golden Grain
and
Broken Bread
can both be viewed online at; Christian Classics Ethereal Library
www.ccel.org
.

2.
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Joan of Arc; accessed July 22, 2008.

Did you know that what you listen to the most is what will have the greatest influence in your life? We are told in the Bible to follow the faith of those who have taught us the Word of God.

Here in the Scriptures we are directed to remember the leaders in the church who taught us the Word of God. That’s why I like reading the sermons of John G. Lake, Smith Wigglesworth, Kenneth Hagin, and others who build up my faith.
We are admonished to imitate their faith. The Word of God will produce results in our lives just as it produced results for them. We are to consider the outcome of their way of life. I’ve greatly considered the mystic saints and I’ve read their writings as well. Their writings bless me and inspire me to continually draw nearer to the Lord.

Mystics such as A.W. Tozer, Walter Beuttler, John Wright Follette, and many of the Catholic saints demonstrated living with a deep, passionate walk with the Lord. When these people left this planet to receive their heavenly reward, they graduated with honors. They did not have to sit in on all the A, B, C classes that many of God’s children will have to attend upon arrival in Heaven. Many Christians fail to understand that if you don’t learn basic Bible subjects down here you will have to learn them up there. I don’t know about you, but when I get to Heaven, I don’t want to sit in some elementary class about basic Christian doctrines that I was supposed to learn on the earth but never did. We should make great efforts during our earthly life to become as Christlike as possible. Once we cross over, our eternal rank is set.

Trees often symbolically speak of people. We determine what our heavenly rank will be by the way we live our lives on the earth. Once we die, that setting is established. There are many different levels in Heaven. We are not all lumped together in the same spiritual strata. Just like some stars shine with varying degrees of brightness, so it will be for the saints.

There are faithful ministers that the Lord has used in my life and they have made a great impact for good in me. Over the years, my wife and I have supported solid ministries that teach and preach the Word of God. For us, it is an honor to financially support the quality ministries that the Lord has connected us with. As we are faithful to do this, we find that our ministry increases more and more in finances and scope of outreach.

You must learn to be careful about whom you listen to and whom you follow spiritually. The reason this is so important is because you will in some measure become just like those you listen to.

When I was younger in the ministry I became aware of the prophetic calling upon my life. At that time, the Lord placed within my heart a desire to study the lives of ministers who operated in the ministry office of prophet. My study time found me examining the lives of many great ministers who are alive today and others who have gone on to be with the Lord. During my study, there was one particular man who stood out to me whose ministry greatly intrigued me. I enjoyed reading about his life and discovering the great miracles that took place in his meetings. In my heart, I wanted to be anointed to minister like this prophet did who has now gone on to be with the
Lord in Heaven. After reading many accounts of his life and ministry I decided to study his teachings. This is when things got interesting. Every time I tried to study his taped messages, the tape player would always mess up and stop working. The computer would never work right when I tried to download his audio messages from the Internet.

There were nights I stayed up late just trying to access old audio files of his taped messages that he preached while still alive, yet nothing ever worked. It was so frustrating until the Lord spoke to me and explained the situation. He told me His angels were
blocking me
from listening to this man’s teaching because so much of his teaching during the latter part of his ministry was in error. How I thank God for His protection, which He so often provides through angels.

See, you have to be careful about who you follow because you will receive what another person has through contact and prolonged association. What you get around the most will eventually rub off on you. Of course, we want this principle to work for good and not for bad. Today I see many young people who I wish had a better understanding of this. They run with the wrong crowd and are swayed in their behavior by the influence of the larger group.

We should strive to live lives of holiness that glorify the Lord. We should stay away from things that have the appearance of evil. We should consider how others view our actions, particularly believers who are young in the Lord and also the unsaved. If you drink beer and participate in social drinking, people will automatically think you are a “party person.” Even if you don’t get drunk, you will still be viewed by those unsaved as a “partier” because that’s what they do. If they see you drinking, they will automatically attach that label to you, because the advertising media has
taught
us that drinking beer in America is primarily associated with immoral sex. Don’t throw the book at me! I’m just being honest. Look at the beer commercials. The commercials are totally lust-related. Anyone who would deny this has been without television for the last 30 years. We must consider others before ourselves. That’s what love really is. The love of God makes you never want to offend or misguide someone. Even if your intentions are sincere, you will find that people will relate you to the present culture that surrounds you.

It has been many years now, but I remember when I used to drink beer. I was actually introduced to alcoholic beverages when I first started attending a Charismatic church! The pastor and all the elders loved their beer and wine and they always invited me to drink with them. Eventually, I agreed to do so. I immediately loved the taste of beer. There were certain brands that were my favorites.

I would justify my drinking by reminding myself that Paul told Timothy to drink a little wine because of his stomach
problem. Well, I had no stomach problem, but I drank anyhow! Then, as I would drink my beer, I would remind myself that Jesus turned water into wine as His first miracle. Of course, I had no idea that the wines spoken of in the Bible were completely different than the wines that are available today. Bible wine was greatly diluted. You could get drunk off of it, but it would take hours to do so and you would have to drink several gallons of it in the process. Usually the water to wine dilution was at a rate of 20 to 1. These are widely known historical facts if one will only study them out.
¹

Over the years in my personal study tine I have spent many hours researching the subject of Bible wines. The wine Jesus drank was nothing like the wine you find available on supermarket shelves today.
Wine
in the Bible is a generic term. A comparably used term is
vehicle
which can also have several meanings, such as car, truck, van, SUV, etc. If you told people you drove a vehicle, they would wonder what kind of vehicle you were referring to. There are different types of wine mentioned in the Bible. A person needs to understand in context what type of wine is being spoken of upon its mention in the Bible. The primary method of preserving grape juice in the time of the Lord’s earthly ministry was through boiling. The juice of the grape would be boiled immediately upon having been expressed from the grape. The remaining residue after boiling was known as
dibbs
. Dibbs was a thick, honey like syrup that would be placed in a wine-skin. When the sweet juice of the grape is boiled down to this consistency, it is impossible for it to ferment. It was much like
what we know as orange juice concentrate. It could be reconstituted once water was added back to it. But when water was added back to reconstitute it for drinking purposes it was done so at a greatly diluted rate.

Let’s suppose you could travel back through time and visit the twelve apostles during the Lord’s earthly ministry. Before you travel back in time, you drop by your local grocery store and purchase a
modern-day
bottle of wine to take with you. If you went back in time and served that to the apostles, they would spit it out on the ground and be highly insulted. That is because in their day and time, it was common knowledge that only the pagans drank that
type
of wine. Those who drank
intoxicating wine
were considered by the Jews and early Christians to be “barbarians.” If a person is willing to study the truth about the wines of the Bible and learn the laws of fermentation, then it will forever settle questions surrounding such topics as the miracle Jesus performed at the wedding in Cana of turning water into wine; Paul’s permission to Timothy to use
a little wine
; the Lord’s Supper at Corinth; and every other alcohol related question that some of God’s people are not adequately prepared to answer.