There's a New Breed in Town
By Trevor Banks
Apostolic believers are emerging from wilderness places to confront man-made traditions with a reforming spirit. Trevor Banks presents believers with a clear choice: follow the Spirit of God into a new time and seasons or grasp for past glories.
A season to everything, a time for every purpose under the sun. To every king’s reign there is an end, a time for the next generation to rise up and lead God’s people. To every movement there is a transition, a spiritual changing of the guard to advance the Church.
Just as the Preacher recognized God’s timing in all things, believers today are faced with a choice: follow the Spirit of God into a new time and season of reformation or resist Him by grasping for past glories. The Body of Christ is at a critical turning point and its members are facing an age-old dilemma not unlike Zacharias, a priest in the days of King Herod.
The Bible tells us that Zacharias and his wife Elisabeth were righteous in God’s sight and walked in His commandments and ordinances in a blameless way. Zacharias was familiar and comfortable with performing his duties in the temple of the Lord when God suddenly decided to intervene in the affairs of men. A kairos time had come. A new breed was about to be born. It was time for the changing of the guard.
The angel Gabriel delivered a prophetic announcement to Zacharias within the temple: His barren wife Elisabeth would give birth to a son and his name would be John. Zacharias resisted the truth and his doubt and unbelief led Gabriel to strike him dumb. He was unable to speak until John the Baptist, who represented the new move of God, was born.
Like Zacharias, there are many believers content to serve the Lord according to past moves of God that are familiar and comfortable. But God is doing a new thing. It’s called the Apostolic Movement and it’s changing the paradigm of the local church from a one-may only model to a model that equips believers to do the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11).
Along with this announcement comes modern day Zachariases who are uncomfortable with change and allow doubt and unbelief to cloud their sensitivity to God’s prophetic voice. But John the Baptist was born despite Zacharias’ resistance to change, and the Apostolic Movement is alive and kicking against religious tradition much the same. Resistance or no resistance, John the Baptist’s ministry did not end until he had fulfilled his destiny in God, and the apostolic is not going away until the Gospel is preached to the uttermost parts of the earth. If we continue reading about Zacharias, we’ll find that even amid his resistance he was forced to change his traditional means of blessing the people because the grace to do things the old way had waned.
Instead of speaking a blessing over the people, he beckoned them with his hand. So we see that the method and custom once used to bless God’s people ceased to be a blessing. “Church as usual” was changed. With John the Baptist in Elisabeth’s womb and Jesus soon to follow, a spiritual changing of the guard was taking place and would be fully manifested in the Messiah. With that change, no longer would the mere exercise of custom and litigious ceremony fulfill mankind in its relationship with God. God was preparing a new wineskin, one that could hold the new wine that would soon be poured out on humanity.
While Zacharias faltered initially, to his credit he decided to obey the promptings of the Lord because he perceived God was doing a new thing. Elisabeth gave birth to John the Baptist, who prepared the way for the Lord Jesus Christ and the duo goes down in Biblical history as the parents of the Messiah’s forerunner.
Modern day Zachariases may also sense that God is doing a new thing. God is once again pouring out a new wine and the apostolic is the new wineskin. It’s a reforming movement that demands a change from the bless-me-only model to an equipping, activating and sending model.
The old movement is not the enemy. Past movements are revered stepping stones that have brought us to this point. The virus is doubt and unbelief and the anecdote is obedience to the Spirit of God. The Church has given birth to a new move of God through the obedience of a small group of pioneers that conceived the possibility of change. Now, it’s time for new breed believers to make the transition. It’s a new season, and one in which Jesus will no longer suffer words of doubt and unbelief or mere traditions and customs of men. When we don’t understand what God is doing, then the course of action is simple. Do like Zacharias did: Shut up and obey!
Obedience has a price. It requires a mindset shift because the apostolic moves beyond vain traditions of the past. Like Joshua, we are beholding the Lord in a way that we haven’t known before (Joshua 5:13-15). In transitional times such as these, we must follow our spirits and not just our heads. By the time Elisabeth gave birth to John, Zacharias was fully convinced that the angelic prophecy was God’s will – and then the resistance to truth came from his friends who supposed the baby should be named after his father, according to tradition. Believers today who are pregnant with the revelation of the apostolic will also receive resistance to truth from friends who haven’t yet accepted what God is doing in the earth today, but we must obey the voice of the Spirit and move ahead despite the spiritual resistance.
John the Baptist was the first fruit of a new movement in his day; a movement that would bring salvation to the world by grace. The child John could not be named after his father Zacharias because his name literally means “grace.” With the old law fading away and times of grace approaching, a new day had dawned. The customs and traditions of men would soon be replaced by enabling grace to give man the ability to live free from the dominion of sin and death and to approach almighty God through the blood of Jesus Christ.
The birth of John’s ministry (enabling grace) took much of the activity out of the temple into the desert place (or world) to not only touch the circumcision but also prostitutes, thieves, murderers, and all who would repent and be baptized. Like many who will rise in this hour, your ministry has been in obscurity; hidden in the wilderness. But the Apostolic Movement is calling out those who were prepared in wilderness places. Jesus is calling out reformers and revivalists who will step beyond stuffy, legalistic traditions and flow with the Holy Ghost. The mission: Turn souls to Christ.
Once again, a changing of the guard is taking place and God is calling a new breed of believers to take the message of saving grace to the nations of the earth with a bold apostolic anointing. Tradition could not stop the coming of the Messiah and it cannot stop the apostolic mandate. Will you open up your mouth and proclaim the truth? Or will your grace wane as you struggle to hold on to the past? The choice is yours. There’s a new breed in town.
Apostle Trevor Banks is the founder of Resurrection Life Family Worship in Ft. Pierce, Fla.
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Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:31 am