ACTS 10:38, Luke informs his readers that Christ was, “anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power…” This anointing was a dy-namic spiritual energy that

impacted the spirits of those who heard Christ preach. The anointing of the Spirit is the purest form of the life of God released upon the speak-er. It allows the message to penetrate the heart of the listener. Without the anointing, a sermon becomes a lecture and the minister an instruc-tor. Anointed preaching has a piercing author-ity connected with the words that proceed from the lips of the speaker. Christ possessed the “power” to heal the sick and expel demons from those possessed with an evil spirit. Luke calls healing the sick freedom from the oppression of the devil (Acts 10:38). A sick person can lose desire, energy, and mental focus to maintain an abundant life in Christ. This distortion of feel-ings and emotions create a mental and spiri-tual fog or weakness. This could be the reason James admonished that when a person is sick, they should “call for the elders of the church to

anoint them with oil” (James 5:14). A sick person often is energized by the faith of others, to assist them in their recovery.

Jesus preached a full-gospel message: salva-tion from sin, sanctification, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and healing. These messages were identified years ago by Amy Simple McPher-son, as the four-square gospel. They encase the gospel or good news for humanity. However, preaching has been reconstructed in recent times. Ministers have become overly cautious when preaching. One reason is some grew up hearing more “traditions of men” than the Bible. Others sat under men who preached with anger and lacked a love for the lost. Several grew up watching attendees leave the church for no oth-er reason than they felt unwelcomed by a legalist congregation of people.

These observations formed an image of the effects of a non-loving negative message. Today, there are two main reasons powerful messages are non-existent in some quarters. First, there is pressure from the congregation not to say cer-tain things or because of financial pressure min-sters fear that certain messages may turn people

RESTORING

THE CHURCHMUST HEARB Y P E R R Y S T O N E

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away from their church, thus hindering the financial support needed to maintain such a large ministry. My personal min-istry belief is that if I preach the Word of God with the anointing of the Spirit, the Lord will confirm His Word and if the individual needs of the listeners are met, then the financial provision will follow.

LOST MESSAGESThere are five messages, once preached, that have been willfully or ignorantly ig-nored by this generation of ministers and need to be restored.

1. THE MESSAGE THAT GOD SANCTIFIES YOU FROM HABITSThe word sanctify or sanctified is used in various forms throughout the Old Testa-ment. Sixty-four times the Hebrew word used is qadash, meaning “to consecrate, make holy, make clean.” In the New Testa-ment Greek, the word to sanctify carries the same meaning; “to consecrate, to hal-low; to make clean.”

In the Old Testament, animals brought to the temple for sacrifice on the brass al-tar were “set apart” and required perfec-tion, being without defect, blemish, or dis-ease (Exod. 29:27). Once inspected, they could not be removed from the temple compound as they were now considered “sanctified.” Land could also be marked as sanctified. When God visited Mount Sinai, no man or beast was permitted to touch the mountain as God set a boundary around the sacred mount. Anyone going past the

boundary would be slain as the mount was “set apart” for God and Moses. Even cer-tain types of furniture for temple service were sanctified (Exod. 40:10-13). The best example is the Ark of the Covenant, which held the rod of Aaron, the golden pot of manna, and the tablets of the law (Heb. 9:4). Anyone other than a Levitical priest touching the Ark would be instantly slain. All of the sacred furniture was marked with the sacrificial blood, thus sanctifying the object for holy purposes.

THE WICKS FOR THE MENORAHThe Temple Institute in Jerusalem said that something unholy could be made holy, but something holy was never to be pro-faned and made unholy. When the clothes of the priests became old and unwearable, the cloth was cut and used for the wicks in the lamps of the seven-branched Me-norah. Finally, people could be sanctified through the washing of water or a combi-nation of water and blood sacrifice.

Today, our sanctification is a three-fold process. Salvation saves the soul, and wa-ter baptism is the seal of our salvation after confessing the blood, and in ask-ing God to “sanctify us from the desires of the flesh,” we can actually experience a separation from those carnal desires. This is true with unclean habits and oth-er desires. In the early days of Pentecost, people were saved, sought sanctification, and were filled with the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is both progres-sive and instantaneous. I have seen people

struggle with habits and eventually gain their breakthrough through sanctification. Others are delivered instantly, as their de-sire for God overrides their desire for the carnal life. We must teach the blessing and power of sanctification.

2. THE MESSAGE THAT HELL IS STILL BURNINGToday, the message of a literal hell is often ignored or rejected using rational argu-ments such as “A good God would never send anyone to hell,” or “hell was an in-vention of the Roman church to frighten people into the church.” Preaching on hell is considered too much of a “negative message” that creates fear. It seems minis-ters have forgotten the verse, “Save some with fear” (Jude 23).

Hell is alluded to 38 times in the Old Testament and 23 times in the New Testa-ment for a total of 61 times. In both tes-taments, it is a literal place located under the heart of the earth with literal flames and heat and an absence of water or any type of life forms that we enjoy on the surface of the earth. In the four gospels, Jesus spoke of hell using the Greek word gehennah. This area was a deep gorge on the southern side of Jerusalem, just out-side the old city walls. The Greek word is translated as hell ten times. In Christ’s day, there was a perpetual fire that burned in this gorge, causing smoke to ascend continually. It was the place where waste was burned. This included the dung that was collected by the priests then carted

“THE ANOINTING OF THE SPIRIT IS THE PUREST FORM OF THE LIFE OF GOD RELEASED UPON THE SPEAKER. IT ALLOWS THE MESSAGE TO PENETRATE THE HEART OF THE LISTENER. WITHOUT THE ANOINTING, A SERMON BECOMES A LECTURE AND THE MINISTER AN INSTRUCTOR.”

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out of the dung gate and hurled into the flames below. It was on a high cliff in this area where Judas hung himself.

Both testaments inform the reader that at death, there are only two places where the soul-spirit of a person can reside for eternity. For the righteous in covenant with God, it is heaven. For the unrigh-teous, it is hell. Jesus gave a stunning true story about hell in Luke 16. We must nev-er allow ourselves to doubt the warning about hell in the Scripture.

3. THE MESSAGE THAT DEMONS STILL POSSES PEOPLEI am at a lack for words as to why many churches today refuse to believe in demon possession. Our staff receives calls to pray for someone who is being controlled by a spirit. The caller tells us that no church they contacted wanted to pray for the per-son in need and even suggested hospitals or psychiatric evaluations!

Christ has defeated Satan’s kingdom and Satan’s control over anyone, once they enter into a blood-covenant with Christ. However, satanic influences are set against God’s agenda attempting to hinder believers. Evil spirits desire to control the bodies, minds, and spirits of those living in unrepentant sin.

In the New Testament various satanic spirits were assaulting individuals (KJV):

• Unclean spirits - Mark 1:26

• Foul spirits - Mark 9:25

• Evil spirits - Acts 19:16

• Dead and dumb spirits - Mark 9:25

• Divination spirits - Acts 16:16

The casting out of demon spirits began with Christ’s ministry, through the book of Acts, continuing into fourth centuries (ac-cording to the early church fathers), and was a doctrine (called exorcism) in the Catholic church to this present day. The devil and his kingdom are still in business and Christ maintains all power over all the power of Satan (Matt. 28:18). We must continue to inform the oppressed, and yes, the possessed, that Christ has authority over demonic influence, and they can be free through anointed prayer.

4. THE MESSAGE THAT THE 9 GIFTS ARE STILL AVAILABLE TODAYThe doctrine of cessation teaches that with the death of the last apostle (John), the miraculous gifts of the spirit ceased, as they were given to the early church to

assist the church during its infant devel-opment and were removed once the New Testament letters were completed in the New Testament Canon. I have pointed out that these gifts are identified as the “gifts of the Spirit” and not the “gifts of the Apostles.” My second point is that there is written evidence in church history that these gifts continued for many centuries and did not actually cease with the death of John. The third point is that the Bible itself teaches us that we “come behind in no gift waiting for the coming of the Son of God” (1 Cor. 1:7). The nine gifts and all spiritual gifts continue until the return of Christ.

In my father’s ministry (and my own), I have seen the vocal gifts, and the power gifts in full manifestation. No one liv-ing can convince me that these gifts have ceased. If a person has never observed these gifts it is perhaps because they are not emphasized in your local church or in some cases are not welcomed as some contemporary ministers may feel there is no need for their operation in a service. If a church only emphasizes a sixty-minute service, including the music, the mes-sage, and announcements, there is little if any time for the Holy Spirit to break forth among the people.

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In this message, Perry points to some unique insight that will stir your spirit. It will provoke you into understanding the simplicity of the Gospel, and encourage your faith to believe in the power of God that one often loses when becoming an adult. This is a unique teaching, only taught once, that needs to be heard again. How can one be ‘childlike’ with God and stop acting ‘childish’ as there is a vast difference?

Returning tothe God of YourChildhood

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As for these nine gifts, remember that a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with a theory. Those who have received a spiritual gift are never at the mercy of an unbelieving theologian.

5. THE MESSAGE THAT ALTAR CALLS ARE STILL NEEDEDA final observation I find troubling is a vast number of Pentecostal-Charismatic churches that have now omitted any type of altar invitation from their services. A friend attends a church in which the min-ister tells the people to pray in their seat as he does not want to embarrass anyone. When I heard this, I thought, “If they are afraid of being embarrassed to con-fess Christ before a group of people, then how will they have any desire to leave church and admit to their friends they have received the Lord!” This is not being “seeker-sensitive” this is leaving people spiritually anemic and weak, with the idea that if they are embarrassed of Jesus, then just don’t tell anyone you are a Christian. Where is the warning that if you deny the Lord before men, he will deny you before

the angels and before the Father at the heavenly judgment (Matt. 10:33)?

I still believe and practice bringing people to the altar for prayer and minis-try. The altar is the meeting place between man and God and is alluded to in Scrip-ture.

•  Noah built the first altar - (Gen. 8:20).

•  Abraham built an altar to God - (Gen. 12:7)

•  Isaac built an altar - (Gen. 26:25)

•  Jacob built an altar - (Gen. 34:20)

•  Moses built an altar - (Exod. 17:15)

While an altar can be any meeting place between you and the Father, most local churches have an area set aside in the front to bring people for ministry. We make a

terrible mistake when we remove the altar for the sake of time and cultural change. So many people are coming to church one way and leaving the same — unchanged. When my father was a teenager, he was converted to Christ and immediately fell in love with the Bible, continually attend-ing church and prayer meetings. During one prayer time at a small church in the mountains, he began praying when service started, and continued praying non-stop toward midnight. It was at this time he ex-perienced a full-color vision of the edge of a wall of the Holy City, New Jerusalem. It was an experience he never forgot. The greatest God encounters in my min-istry have been in altar services, garnering spiritual results of over 200,000 souls won to Christ and filled with the Spirit — all having occurred in the front of a church, where the Word had been preached and the presence of the Lord was energizing the place. We must never remove the al-tars from the house of God!

These five messages and spiritual con-cepts must be restored and never omitted from our Christian faith. 

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The final book of the Old Testament says that God will send Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful day of the Lord! John the Baptist came in the “spirit of Elijah,” and this same level of anointing must operate in our generation to turn things around. This is a very timely word for the Body of Christ

Elijah andthe FinalMove of God

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