R.T. Kendall's Blog, page 9
January 11, 2014
Holy Fire 2
What you might learn from my book HOLY FIRE
I wrote HOLY FIRE for the young Christian, the new Christian, the theological student, the new pastor but also the seasoned minister who aspires more than ever to be jealous for the honor and glory of God. I wrote it also for the fence straddler out there who is sincerely baffled and unsure of what to believe about the Holy Spirit.
Jonathan Edwards said that the one thing Satan cannot produce in us is a love for the glory of God. So if the reading of Holy Fire results in a greater love for the honor of God and deeper reverence for the Holy Spirit, you may be sure that the devil did not put that desire and respect there. This is also why Edwards stated that when the church is revived, so is the devil! So you may count on the devil putting every obstacle in your way to rob you of the joy that comes from intimacy with the Holy Spirit.
“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” (Hos.4:6). In this connection I would mention (1) lack of knowledge of God’s word and (2) lack of knowledge of God’s ways.
The first thing is the reading of the Bible. The devil does not want you to read your Bible, much less spending a lot of time reading the Bible. How well do you know your Bible? To understand the Bible you must be on good terms with the Holy Spirit. You also need a Bible reading plan.
Second, the way you know someone’s “ways” is by spending time with them. You show your esteem of a person by how much time you give them. So I will come right to the point: how much do you pray? The devil does not want you to pray, much less spending a lot of time praying.
“Satan trembles when he sees t he weakest saint upon his knees”
- William Cowper (1731-1800).
I urge at least thirty minutes a day in your quiet time – including Bible reading and prayer. For the person in full-time Christian ministry I suggest a minimum of an hour a day (two is better) and this should be for private devotions and quiet time without using any of this time for sermon preparation. Martin Luther spent two hours a day in prayer. John Wesley spent two hours a day in prayer. According to a recent poll taken on both sides of the Atlantic, the average church leader (pastor, priest, evangelist, teacher) today spends four minutes a day in prayer. And you wonder why the church is powerless? You get to know God and his ways by spending time with him.
A defective view of the God of the Bible has resulted in dangerous teachings in some circles. One is called hyper-grace teaching. The view comes to this: since Jesus dealt with all our sin on the cross there is no need to confess sin – it has already been dealt with. No need for repentance in the Christian life, say these people. This is tantamount to antinomianism [anti– law] and can so easily lead to ungodly living. The people who uphold this kind of thinking have actually had to eliminate certain books of the Bible, for example, Hebrews and 1 John. Imagine that! To uphold a teaching they have to cut out part of the canon of Holy Scripture! I warn you, this teaching grieves the Holy Spirit. It is a fad. It will not last. But it can do incalculable damage in the meantime.
Another deadly teaching is called open theism. This view of God brings him down to the level of man so that such a God does not know his own mind without our input. The idea is, we actually help God know what to do next; without us he cannot move forward. This is sub-Christian teaching. It has astonishingly crept into certain Charismatic circles. When one leader of this teaching was asked publicly in London, “With this view of God, is it not possible that God could lose out in the end?” The reply was: Yes. Imagine a God like that. For the God of the Bible wins! But such a weak view of God is the ultimate consequence of denying his eternal sovereignty.
On the heels of open theism is the notion that we can virtually make God do anything. We can “decree absolutely true that God promises to bless the tither (Mal.3:10) – for we cannot out-give the Lord (2 Cor.9:8), beware of those who pitch this point of view mainly to advance their personal ministries. Some leaders go so far as to claim that their “words of knowledge” are superior to Holy Scripture. Some deny the Bible as being the complete and final revelation of eternal truth. One leader said, “If the Apostle Paul had my faith he would not have had a thorn in the flesh”. I’m sorry, but this kind of doctrine has emerged in Charismatic and Pentecostal settings. Be wise to teaching that exalts any man or woman and even appeals to a person’s greed. They emerge from strange fire, teachings that are alien to Holy Scripture.
We are selling Holy Fire at the discount price of $11.99 this month!
January 3, 2014
Holy Fire 1
Holy Fire
The Holy Spirit does not belong to you. Are you charismatic? He is bigger than your signs and wonders events. Are you Reformed? He will not be limited by your theology. The Lord Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, “He blows where he will” (John 3:8).
So begins my latest book, called Holy Fire. All authors think their latest book is the best and most important. So is Holy Fire my best and most important? Possibly. It is arguably the most relevant since I wrote Total Forgiveness.
Last March 20th a request came from Steve Strang (Charisma House). He got word that a well known Reformed Evangelical was writing a book called Strange Fire. They all knew it would be a broadside attack on all Charismatics and Pentecostals. For some reason they thought I should reply. So I did. I asked Pastor Jack Hayford to write the Foreword. He asked: “How long should it be?” I replied: “Write as long as you feel the anointing, then stop”. His Foreword went to thirteen pages. Steve Strang said to me, “I have known Jack Hayford for over thirty years; I have never known him to get so excited over a book”. This really encouraged me. Over thirty leaders have endorsed it. Not all of them are Charismatics or Pentecostals, including an endorsement from Christianity Today. I ask you to join me in prayer that God will use this book. Some will know I wrote a letter to the author and invited him to have a civil debate presidential style on cessationism (the view that the miraculous “ceased” at some stage in church history). Many have asked, “Has he replied?” Sorry, but No. I am not very surprised. He does not have a shred of biblical support for his cessationist position. He would not want to face me (or anybody) who upholds an anti-cessationsist position.
I was at some disadvantage not to have a copy of Strange Fire. I decided to start my book anyway – and call it Holy Fire (my wife Louise’s suggestion). I finished it in just over three months. When I read his book after my own went to press, I was relieved. I feared I might have left some important things out. I need not have worried. Some think my book is more convincing because I had not read his.
The people of Charisma House know I am not exactly a card-carrying Charismatic. I believe in and have experienced the gifts of the Holy Spirit of 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, but I don’t always take the “party line”. At the same time I am a reformed theologian but with a small “r”. I don’t dot all the i’s or cross all the t’s exactly as some of the Reformed people do. But God has given me close friends in both camps. I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit as much as anybody I know and I believe in the sovereignty of God as much as anybody I know.
I have sought to write a book that will make people hungry for the Holy Spirit.
The feed-back I have received from nearly all who have read my book is that it is “balanced”. I am not sure however that being “balanced” is necessarily a good thing. I am not sure I always want to be perfectly balanced. However, please read my 2014 New Year’s Letter – and the last chapter in Holy Fire called Isaac – and you may conclude I am absolutely safe from the charge of being balanced!
One fringe benefit of my book Holy Fire is this: to those who do not know him, I introduce Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He was at Westminster Chapel for thirty years. I was there for twenty-five years. He is responsible for my being there. His view of the “immediate and direct” witness of the Holy Spirit does not please cessationists; they cannot bear his teaching on the Holy Spirit.
There are two chapters on cessationism in Holy Fire. But I emphasize that cessationists are not bad people. They are among God’s best vanguards of Christian orthodoxy.
The funny thing is, much of my book could be written by a cessationist. Read my chapter called Strange Fire – you will agree!
I hope you will read Holy Fire. If it blesses you, please consider giving copies away.
RT
We are selling Holy Fire at the discount price of $11.99 this month!
January 1, 2014
December 31, 2013
New Years Letter 2014
Dear Friends:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” - Proverbs 13:12.
A friend at breakfast said to me yesterday, “Well, R. T., you have had a pretty good year”. I said, “I can understand why you would say that, but not really; what I hoped for didn’t happen”.
Yes, it has been a good year in many ways. I have my family around me – a wonderful wife, children and grandchildren. Good health (for an old man). Lovely home on Hickory Lake here in Tennessee. I have been kept very busy. Books published, more on the way. Busiest year yet coming up – we will be attached to Kensington Temple in London from February to early July 2014. God continues to use me. What more could one want?
If you read last year’s New Year’s Letter and my new book Holy Fire and turn to the final chapter – Isaac, you might well suspect why I have been personally disappointed with 2013. I actually expected the Great Awakening during the past year. I am talking about the fulfillment of Matthew 25:6: “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’” The translation “midnight” is from two Greek words – mesos and nux - “middle of the night”. I believe the church today is in a deep sleep, that there will be a major wake up call – having the equivalent effect of September 11, 2001. This Cry in the middle of the night according to the Parable of the Ten Virgins precedes the Second Coming.
I was urged by my father nearly 60 years ago not to deal with eschatology – prophecy: “Let the old men deal with that, my son, then they won’t be around to see their mistakes”. Agreed. I have largely avoided eschatology throughout my ministry. But now I am old. So I am prepared to say that we are on the brink of the greatest move of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost. There is coming a huge wake up call to the church that will go around the world – when it comes – in hours. In the Egyptian crisis this year nearly one million people flooded the square in Cairo an hour. How? By modern communications that nearly everyone has access to. Wait and see. This tool will do this with regard to a message coming down the road. Get ready for it. It will wake up the church.
I call it Isaac. It is when the Word and Spirit come together – at last. Smith Wigglesworth prophesied the same thing three months before he died in 1947, as I show at the close of my book Holy Fire. It is (in my humble opinion) the next thing on God’s calendar. It will result in the church being awakened, the lifting of the blindness on Israel and millions of Muslims converted. But all this will be paralleled by great persecution. It won’t be all fun. The “wise” virgins – those who have pursued their inheritance – will be right in the middle of this great outpouring. The “foolish” virgins – those who have not pursued their inheritance – will be on the side lines; they will plead for help from those who pursued their inheritance. But it will be too late for them.
Yes, I thought this would have come by now. But I expect it soon. I expect to see it in my lifetime (I am 78). So am I getting wiser or sillier in my old age? You tell me. My book In Pursuit of His Wisdom comes out in the UK this year. Also, please pray that God will use Holy Fire – one of my most important books to come along since Total Forgiveness.
Happy New Year! From Louise and me – and all our family,
Warmest greetings.
R T Kendall John 5:44
December 28, 2013
A New Years Resolution 2014
Win a Soul to Jesus in 2014
A few weeks after I began my ministry at Westminster Chapel I asked the congregation, “How many of you have never led a soul to Jesus Christ?” I am not sure how this went down with them, but one man – Mr. Bob George – told me that this shook him rigid. He said to himself, “Here I am 60 years old and I have never led a person to Christ”.
Five years later I made the most controversial decision of my twenty-five years at Westminster: I invited Arthur Blessitt – the man who has carried a cross all over the world – to preach for me for several weeks in April-May 1982. (The Guinness Book of Records has since given him an award for the “longest walk” – the equivalent of one and a half times around the world). Although having Arthur got me into more trouble than any decision I have ever made – I almost got fired, it was the best decision of twenty-five years.
Arthur got us out on the streets – giving out tracts and talking directly to people about their eternal state. I had never done this in my life, and I certainly did not invite Arthur to the Chapel for him to do this! Such never entered my mind. But one evening while I watched Arthur witness to passers-by on the steps of my church I had a vision – of a pilot light, a light in an oven or cooker that stays lit day and night. In that moment I died a thousand deaths. “My ambitions, plans and wishes at His feet in ashes lay”, as the hymn “I will praise Him” put it. I knew from that moment I was being called to be a personal soul winner – not just preaching from the pulpit (which is easy) but talking to people face to face (which is not easy)
The funny thing is, only a few days before, I had asked Arthur to pray for me that I could have his anointing. I knew he had something I didn’t have – and I wanted it. I honestly felt he was the most like Jesus of anyone I had met. And yet what I really wanted was more “unction” – a greater anointing on my preaching. So he prayed for me. On our knees together in my vestry at Westminster Chapel Arthur laid his hands on me that I might have his anointing.
Not long ago I was Arthur’s guest on TBN. We were discussing my book These are the Days of Elijah. In the course of that interview Arthur asked, “R. T., what do you do when people ask for your anointing, like when Elisha asked for Elijah’s mantle?” I replied: “Well, Arthur, to be honest I actually did that – don’t you remember? In my vestry at Westminster Chapel that is exactly what I asked from you?” Yes, he remembered. Then I asked a question I had not thought of until that moment: “Was that prayer answered?” I thought for a few seconds.
YES. Arthur’s prayer was answered. First, our Pilot Light Ministry (witnessing on the streets in Westminster between Victoria and Buckingham Palace) was born a few days later. Over the next twenty years we had hundreds of people from many nations of the world pray to receive Christ (some even went into the ministry). By the way, Bob George was the first to join us on the streets. Before he went to Heaven (over twenty years later ) he had over 500 to pray to receive Christ. He made up for lost time. Second, my own life was never the same again. Apart from people praying to receive the Lord on the steps of Westminster Chapel, I have been an evangelist wherever I have gone over the past thirty years – on trains, planes and automobiles – everywhere.
Arthur’s anointing did truly fall on me. I am surprised I had not seen this before. I don’t carry a cross. I don’t preach in jeans. Or give out Jesus stickers. But I have had many hundreds pray with me to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
What about you? Have you ever led a soul to Christ? I challenge you – make it a goal to lead at least one soul to the Lord before 2014 is over. A small suggestion: try to do it soon. The months will fly by.
December 24, 2013
Legitimizing Christmas
Legitimizing Christmas
All my life I have come across sincere Christians who not only oppose
Christmas as a celebration but positively feel it is wrong and not
pleasing to God. I know one minister who preaches against Christmas. He
believes he is glorifying God by doing this. I have another very close
friend who has refused to celebrate Christmas for many years, but recently
made a slight turn and now accepts it and blesses those who do.
My opinion has always been that, even if people are right by opposing
Christmas, is it worth the effort? What good is accomplished by printing
tracts and carrying placards against Christmas. The funny – or sad – thing
is, they could join an ever-increasing number of atheists who have decided
to spend money on trying to get rid of Christmas. So these anti-Chrstmas
Christians and anti-Christian atheists could have a party!
But I want to put another view. I think God likes and accepts Christmas
and – possibly – honors those who do. Why? Because of the worship of Jesus
on Palm Sunday. I have a sermon called WORSHIPING GOD FOR THE WRONG
REASONS – namely, what they did on Palm Sunday. Those who shouted HOSANNA
on the original Palm Sunday were excited because they were convinced that
Jesus would reveal His power and purpose in coming – by overthrowing Rome.
That is what the crowds were excited about. NOT because He was the Son of
God. NOT because He would shortly be dying on a cross for our sins. But
because He was the promised Messiah that would succeed David as the new
King of Israel and put Jerusalem back in glory as it once had been. That
is why they were shouting. No other reason.
Did Jesus get upset with these people? Did He rebuke them? Did he say “NO
- stop it. You are worshipping me for the wrong reason”? Not at all. Jesus
accepted their praise. He said if they didn’t praise him the rocks would
cry out. As for the children who were in on this celebration, what could
they possibly know? And yet it was the Pharisees who were offended at them!
A couple years ago I was in a church where the worship went over the top -
in my opinion. It was noisy. I mean horribly loud. People were jumping up
and down. Carrying banners and flags. Worst of all I was on the front row.
To be honest, I not only was uncomfortable; I was resentful. When all of a
sudden a voice entered into my mind: “They are worshipping Me”. I was
smitten and sorry for my attitude. I could see that Jesus didn’t mind at
all. I minded. He liked it.
I think Christmas is something like that.
RT
December 7, 2013
Holy Fire
On March 20th of this year I received a surprising phone call from Steve Strang, publisher of Charisma House. He asked me to write a book about the Holy Spirit. This was an invitation I could not refuse. Louise said, “Call it ‘Holy Fire’”. I knew that was the right title. I began writing Holy Fire. Steve’s wife Joy gave me a most wonderful suggestion: “Write a book that will make people hungry for the Holy Spirit”. If this book is as good as some seem to think, I have Joy to thank for it.
I finished Holy Fire in four months. It was possibly the easiest book I ever wrote. Words flowed; insights and sense of direction came faster than I could write. I asked Pastor Jack Hayford would he kindly write a Foreword? He agreed. I then sent the manuscript to a number of church leaders. All but one came back to me with an endorsement. Over thirty leaders gave very positive commendations. To my amazement Jack Hayford called it “a landmark book”. His original Foreword went to thirteen pages. Steve Strang said to me, “I have known Jack Hayford for over thirty years; I have never known him to be so excited about a book”.
It is easy for any author to think that their latest book is “the best and most important yet”. I have this temptation with almost every book I write! But if I am completely honest, this book may truly be my most important.
Funnily enough, there are probably more religious books available on the Holy Spirit than any other subject, but I fear that the Third Person of the Trinity is still the least understood. The Evangelical wing of the church at the moment is largely divided between those who believe that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are available today and those who believe they “ceased” – long ago. Those who hold to the latter view are called “cessationists”.
Holy Fire is written for the new Christian, the mature scholar, the layman and church leader. I sought to keep Joy Strang’s advice before me as I wrote every line. If this book does not make one hungry for the Holy Spirit I will have failed in my goal.
I have tried to write a book for those with a limited education or no Christian background. I have sought to introduce the Holy Spirit to the reader as if he or she knew nothing about Him. Early in the book is a chapter on twenty-one things every Christian should know about the Holy Spirit. I also introduce Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones to my readers, although many will know who he is. He was my predecessor and the man responsible for my being at Westminster Chapel. I explain his beautiful concept of the “immediate and direct” witness of the Holy Spirit. I also have a chapter called “Strange Fire” in which sadly I have to talk about certain unbiblical positions and practices among some Pentecostals and Charismatics today. You could think that a “cessationist” wrote this chapter!
There are two chapters on “cessationism” in my book. I carefully and simply explain the term – its history and meaning. The irony is: there is no biblical support for it – not even a little bit. It is a theory some sadly have chosen to believe; they have sought to turn an unwarranted theory into a dogma and without any question quenched the Holy Spirit Himself in the process. They did not mean to, but they did.
Cessationists are not bad people. I have a section “Be Fair With Cessationists”. Many of them are the salt of the earth; they have been vanguards for the Christian faith, maintaining a robust belief in the infallibility of Scripture.
I have an important chapter called “The Baptism with the Holy Spirit”, showing all points of view (that I know of) and then I explain my own position. I have a chapter on the “gifts of the Holy Spirit”, dealing with the nine gifts referred to in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. At the request of my publisher I included a chapter devoted to my own testimony – how I myself was baptized with the Spirit and how it changed my theology and life thereafter.
The final chapter is called “Isaac” – my word for the next great move of the Holy Spirit which I believe is coming soon – very soon. It is when the Word and the Spirit come together simultaneously as it was experienced in the earliest church. Three months before his death in in 1947 Smith Wigglesworth prophesied this (which I quote at the end of the book). The next great move of the Holy Spirit will sweep the earth and demonstrate a power not seen in some two thousand years. There will be no “cessationists” after the next move of God on this planet.
Pray that cessationists and new Christians will read my book. I believe they will find a home in the very position I maintain – a robust theology of the sovereignty of God alongside a firm conviction that Jesus Christ is indeed the same “yesterday, today and forever” (Heb.13:8).
RT Kendall
Holy Fire is available now:
December 6, 2013
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Louise said to me this morning, “Here I go”. I asked, “What do you mean?” She said, “I am taking Nelson Mandela off my prayer list”
I will never forget it. On a Sunday afternoon – February 2nd, 1990 – when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison after twenty-six years, two things gripped me. First, Louise revealed to me that day that she had been praying for him every day for several years – beginning when he was on trial – long before he was in prison in Robin Island, near Cape Town, South Africa. I had no idea she had been praying for him. But for some reason she connected with him and began praying for him every day. Today she stopped. I would be surprised if there is a person in the world who has prayed more for Mandela than she has – every day for some forty years. Second, the phrase “the bearing of a prince” came to mind as I watched Nelson Mandela that day. We all wept. What a man. Sheer class. Utter dignity. Extraordinary presence
A few years later I received a phone call from Ken Costa, prominent London banker and churchwarden of Holy Trinity Church, Brompton. “I am sitting in the car with Washington Okumu, the man who is responsible for putting Nelson Mandela in power, and he wants to meet you”. I had never heard of Washington Okuma, but I was happy to meet him. I found out later he was a protégé of Dr. Henry Kissinger at Harvard and became a professor in Kenya. He sat on the front row at Mandela’s inauguration in Pretoria. Dr. Kissinger walked over to Okumu and said, “You did what I tried but failed to do”. Okumu came to our flat in London. He said he wanted to meet me because my book God Meant it for God had changed his life. He shared something that was quite over-the-top: that Nelson Mandela would not be president of South Africa apart from him. His reasoning was that God Meant it for Good spurred him to get president de Klerk, chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Mandela together – which put Mandela in power. He wanted me to give him a signed copy of God Meant it for Good to pass on to Nelson Mandela (which he apparently did). I later asked Washington Okumu to write the Foreword to my book Total Forgiveness.
I did my best to meet Nelson Mandela. Never in my life have I tried so hard to meet anybody. But on a flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town my Bible reading that day leaped out at me, “Should you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not?” (Jer.45:5). That verse brought me right down. I was smitten. My prideful motives surfaced and I felt pretty awful. I knew that I was not aiming for something God was in. Four different people assured me they could get me to Mandela (this in itself is a story!). I even had thirty minutes with the very man who was arguably the closest to him – Frank Chicane, and yet meeting Mandela never happened. Why? It was not God’s idea. It taught me a lesson. I wanted to meet Mandela for the wrong reason.
Louise cried when hearing the news last night of Mandela’s death. I do not know why she had this desire to pray for him. Her role in this was not to meet him but only to pray for him. She hoped that at some stage he would have a strong Christian testimony. I asked Chicane – himself a Pentecostal preacher, “Do you think Mandela is saved?” He smiled. “That’s a good question”, not the words I hoped to hear. However, for reasons I outline in my forthcoming book on Wisdom, I choose to believe he was a Christian.
That said, whether Mandela was saved or not, he rises above all the great men in history – whether Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln. I thank God for him. He was (in my humble opinion) the greatest man in human history outside the Bible.
RT Kendall
December 2, 2013
Jubilee World Outreach, Johnson City, Tennessee
Jubilee World Outreach Pastor: Kirby Hill
1409 Indian Ridge Rd, Johnson City, Tn. 37604
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