Sid: My guest by way of telephone Dr. Howard Morgan another Jewish man that is red hot for Yeshua, Hebrew for Jesus. I’m speaking to him at his home in Atlanta, Georgia. We’re featuring his book “Leaves from the Olive Tree” this week. In your book Howie you say something that could be construed as very very controversial, but the truth of the matter is God doesn’t change.
Dr. Morgan: Amen.
Sid: We’re not seeing results of the New Testament, the New Testament is of God therefore, one guess as to who’s done the changing it’s us. How have we changed? What have we changed from, and how do we change back? But here’s one of the statements you made and you said “That the system is based on an emperor system, and the emperor, or the pastor, only sees your value.” Of course there are exceptions, please please we’re not talking about everyone, but we’re saying that the system itself lends to this. “The emperor only sees your value as you work to accomplish his goals.” Please elaborate on that as you did in your book.
Dr. Morgan: I think it’s really import for us to understand as you described the system. The spirit of religion has created a system by which it operates. It puts people into the system, grinds them up literally robs them of their inheritance in Christ, then fits them into a mold where they live for the system. The insidious part of it is the deception that takes place as you go through the system where you think you’re really doing the will of God and you’ve been so deceived because you’re actually not doing the will of God you end up serving the system. So we have leaders who are in the system and they become what I call “Little Emperors.” You know, Caesar ruled the Greco-Roman world; the Caesars, the emperors ruled. Into this comes the Christ who says “If you want to be great in my kingdom, of which I am the King over all the emperors, I am the King over all the kings you are called to serve one another.” In so many churches we’re all serving the “pastors vision.” This doesn’t necessarily have to be in large churches it could be in home meetings where the same spirit of intimidation, manipulation, and control take…
Sid: But wait a second, what’s wrong with serving the pastor’s vision he’ll never implement it unless he’s got a team doing it?
Dr. Morgan: Yes, now… that’s a really good point because I want to talk about so many pastors visions that are really focused on themselves and their own ministry. I believe that the authentic vision of the New Testament because we’re talking about New Testament realities in that the authentic vision of the great Shepherd is to bring people to maturity. So that the vision of the pastor in my understanding should be “What can I do to make everyone in my congregation a disciple? How can I save them, mature them, train them, and send them? Not keep them for myself.” Oh Sid we have over the years helped so many people who as one sister describes she was a victim of church abuse. She came with a heart full of zeal for the Lord and ended up doing whatever the pastor wanted regardless of whether she believed it was the will of God to being told that she had to submit to authority. Inside her relationship with God was being crushed. Finally to the point where she could no longer do it anymore and having served faithfully for years; having given money faithfully for years at that point they just simply threw her out and dismissed her, marked her as a rebel because she could no longer do what the “system” was enforcing her to do. It was demanding, the intimidation, the manipulation, and the control was so intense that she could no longer function. And really it took her a couple of years to find her way back to her relationship with Jesus because it got so confused in her thinking because this was the church, these were the elders, this was the pastor telling her how she was supposed to live. So the vision of the church “If we’re going to see the glory of God” I believe that there’s going to have to be a radical paradigm shift a shift in the way we view the world, and the way we view church, and the way we do church that’s about equipping people challenging them to rise up and get into the flow of the river of God, and move in the power, and start to experiment, and start to take the risk of faith, and go out into the highways and byways and pray for people and watch what the Lord will do. Not hide in the service and say “Oh the pastor he’s anointed the evangelist who shows up, he’s anointed.” They’re supposed to be equipping ministries, Ephesians 4:11…
Sid: But you know what Howie, I believe the heart of good pastors is “I want this, but I don’t know how to do it.”
Dr. Morgan: Well here’s the thing…
Sid: How do you do… wait a second. How do you it with a church of a thousand people. I mean 99% of them have got to be sitting there just being fed. A few will be workers, but there’s not room within the church system for everyone to be a worker.
Dr. Morgan: So then we have to look at how the system has developed and how we have to raise up leaders over tens, and hundreds, and thousands. Each one who is discipling, and underline the word discipling, because what we’ve done in the system is made church going believers of people and told them “That it’s enough, it’s okay if you’re simply just going to a church on Sunday.” So that many people when we witness to them and ask if they’re a Christian their answer is “I go to church.” Instead we should say to them “What is the word of the Lord to you? What are you doing about it?” The system has created a dynamic where the pastor is happy that a thousand people are there and it feels good. But my question is of those 1000 people “How many are real disciples?” Then that pastor has to get before the Lord and say “How can I disciple every one of them? I need to raise up leaders over tens, and hundreds, and thousands so that each one has a “Father” in the Lord. Another thing we’ve lost down through the centuries that is so deeply engrained in our Jewish culture and world view and mindset of fathers raising sons, who raise grandsons so that all the tribes are coming to maturity. That was the vision that God gave, they didn’t fulfill it we know, but it’s still the system that God put in place in the Torah, and Brit Hachadashah, the New Testament. It’s all about raising up disciples and asking the Lord you know you may have to maybe break the church up into smaller groups like home meetings, and those wonderful things that are going on in so many places. Even that has to be focused on equipping people to do the work, to be discipled because you know what Sid, Jesus did not say “Go into all the world and make church going believers of everyone you meet.” What He did say was “Go into all the world and disciple the nations teaching them to obey the things that I have commanded you to do.”
Sid: So what you’re saying is the common theology is “Say a prayer with Billy and you go to heaven and everything is fine” is not really the whole story.
Dr. Morgan: Not at all, it’s the very very beginning of the story praying the prayer with Billy, repenting, then saying “Okay Billy, train me.” If Billy can’t train you then Billy needs to get trained so that he can train you, then you can get trained so that you can lead somebody to the Lord. If you’re one day older than somebody you can give them what you’ve learned in that one day. If you know one more verse than them you can help them with the one verse you’ve learned; each of us pouring in to each other’s lives. Oh my word Sid how many churches, big churches and nobody is talking to one another, nobody is fellowshipping. We’ve been in churches you know that the people left and they moved faster than the lines in Disney. You know, 2500 people out gone, you turn around the place is empty and it’s sad the place remains empty here’s a multi-million dollar facility and it’s used a few hours a week for the “theatre.” Oh and it’s great theatre I mean it’s a big wonderful band and lights and action and camera, and sound effects all this other kinds of stuff, but who is being equipped to do the work? Because the system makes people church goers rather than disciples, it makes people members of a local organization rather than members of one another. Being members of one another, and being disciples that’s hard work, there’s a lot of problems that have to be dealt with. So down through the centuries the system says “Well we don’t want to deal with the problem we’ll just leave the people alone they’ll come to church it’s okay if they don’t grow so much, it’s okay.” It’s not okay! If we have this passion this is a lot of hard work and it’s going to turn things upside down. I tell you what brother I believe there is tsunami tidal wave of revolution coming to the body of Christ. We are in a time I believe Sid of real apostolic and prophetic reformation and revolution in the body of Christ as things like… I’m not the only the one this thing, you know I’m catching the same wind that you are and many of men and women of God around the world are getting that are saying “God we’re doing things wrong, we’re not seeing the fruit.” What I’m sharing is just some of the little bits of insight that I’ve received and God is giving me more as I pray about this you know about how we’re supposed to be relating to one another all the time.
Sid: Howie, I must ask you a question.
Dr. Morgan: Sure.
Sid: Why do you keep referring to it as we are denying our Jewish roots, why don’t you just say what it is, Biblical roots?
Dr. Morgan: Right, well because I have a particular passion in my heart Sid that we get connected to our Biblical relationship and responsibility to the Jewish people. God spoke to me in a very profound way 15 years ago. Of course it’s absolutely our Biblical Jewish roots because we’re not talking about modern day Judaism, and modern day Orthodox, or Reform, or Liberal Judaism, we’re talking about our Biblical Jewish roots. We’re talking also about the Jewish people and the nation of Israel and being connected to the roots that then connect us to what God’s wanting to do with the nation of Israel.
Sid: You know Howie my question that I want to pose, and I want you Mishpochah to be kind of thinking about this. The call of the Jew was to be a light to the nations.
Dr. Morgan: Yes.
Sid: And we were, that’s why we have Christianity today. The call of the Gentile believer is to provoke the Jew to jealousy to reach the Jew so that the 2 can have the wall of separation come down and become that One New Race, that One New Man that Paul talks about. So that the full body can manifest in the glory of God can be poured out. So why wouldn’t the church want their Biblical Jewish roots, it makes no sense if the call is to reach the Jew why wouldn’t you want… I want you just to speculate on that. We’ll talk about this on tomorrow’s broadcast.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth