Ps 141:5 - Let a righteous man strike me—that is a kindness; let him rebuke me—that is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it.
A little preface to this story. fifteen years ago I was going to a bible church in Dallas and got there a little early on Wednesday night. I was sitting in the entryway talking to a guy who it turned out was the Chairman of the Board of Elders. He was an intelligent guy with a strong personality and we enjoyed bantering with each other. Sometime during the conversation he mentioned that he had been a pilot. I said "Yea, you have a pilot's arrogance", not meant in an ugly way, just the way guys with strong personalities challenge each other. His response was the verse above. I was stunned! A man just admitted his sin and repented of it! His humility was stunning! Never before or after have I seen such a thing, it was wonderful to see. It was truly an amazing experience!
Last week after I had written the message "Prayers For Linda", a friend of mine who was on my mailing list but whom I hadn't seen or spoken to in probably thirteen years emailed me and invited me to her church, telling me a little about the leader. I looked it up on the internet and immediately saw that the head of the church called himself "Apostle Raymond". The website was advertising a Holy Spirit Conference on Sunday afternoon at 5:00 at a church less than a mile from my house. I told her that I would come but that I had a real problem with people who promote themselves by using "Apostle" or "Prophet" as their title, it is a huge red flag to me. It speaks of the utmost in pride and arrogance, they are impressed with what they think they are. They think they are something very special and should be looked up to and admired. I called the church number listed on their website and got a voice mail "This is Apostle Raymond ......", another red flag.
But I went on Sunday and was able to see my friend for a couple of minutes before the service when she told me that "Apostle" Raymond had gone to the Kenneth Hagin School. That was another HUGE red flag because Kenneth Hagin is one of those "name it and claim it" fools like Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Marylin Hickey, Joyce Meyers and others of their ilk. They think that you can just go to the Bible and claim any verse you want and confess it enough times and it will come to pass. Of course they would never claim the verse in Luke 14:33 - In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples because that is not a "positive confession" verse. Nor would they ever claim the verses about sharing in Jesus suffering because those are not positive confession verses. They claim only the "good" verses as their "rights in Jesus". But that is for another message in the future.
Anyway, then I went into the auditorium and saw the huge crowd there was less than 10 people. "Apostle" Raymond was very well known obviously, a great man of God. "Apostle" Raymond walked in and started the service with a time of worship. During the time of worship I felt a great pain in my heart because I didn't know what would happen with Linda, whether God would honor my prayers for her or not. I was in terrible pain and it took every ounce of strength I had to keep my composure and not burst out in tears and sobbing. But I didn't want to interrupt the service and call attention to myself, so I controlled my emotions, hoping that during the time of personal ministry later in the service that God would give me a word of hope for her.
Then "Apostle" Raymond went around the place greeting his huge following and came to me and introduced himself "Hi, I'm Apostle Raymond!" I introduced myself as Cliff Hilbert . Then I told him that God doesn't care about how many people were there, He only cares about people being ministered to personally and individually. (Earlier he "apologized" to the huge crowd for the small number of people there, and promised that it would be much larger in the future.) I was trying to encourage him not to be embarrassed by the few people there, and he smiled. Then he went back up on the stage and it was time for the offering. He said that the building cost $14,300/month. Yes, the actual building cost that much each month for the church that was leasing the space, but all he was doing was using the building on Sunday afternoons. He was not the actual lessee, he only paid a small amount to use it on Sundays, but this way he hoped to get large donations for himself.
Then "Apostle" Raymond begin to "preach"for over an hour and he was all over the place during his sermon, meaning that he talked about fifteen or twenty different topics, none of them connected. He was talking to hear himself talk and trying to look important - he didn't succeed in looking important. He kept asking for "amens" and asking if he was helping anyone, desperately seeking approval from everyone. He got virtually no response. Maybe he wasn't yelling loud enough. I went out and sat in the lobby for about fifteen minutes because I couldn't take anymore of his inane babbling.
When he finally finished his "sermon" he began to minister to people prophetically, with a prophetic word for everyone there, except me. He asked if everyone had been ministered to (obviously with a crowd that large it was hard for him to remember if he had ministered to everyone), I said "no" and went up to be prayed for. His first words to me were "He (God) didn't give me a word for you". He asked me what I wanted prayer for and I told him Linda and my health. He then told me "Do you believe that God wants to heal you now?" I told him that God would heal me whenever it was His time for Him to heal me. But he continued to try and get me believe that in order to be healed I needed to believe that God wanted to heal me right now - I wouldn't, and simply told him that God would heal me when He was ready to heal me. I didn't fall for that Kenneth Hagin foolishness, it is utter nonsense. So he prayed a general prayer for me and I left. I wonder if Lazarus had enough faith to be raised from the dead?
On Monday I received a call from someone at the church telling me that "Apostle" Raymond wanted to have lunch with me this week. I said that would be fine but he must read my story "In His Sandals" before we met, and I gave them the link. We set the lunch for Wednesday afternoon. I received an email saying that a lunch was set for "Apostle and Clifford Hilbert" on Wednesday at 3:00. Over the next two days I prayed in the spirit for about four hours about this meeting because I didn't know God's purpose for it. I suspected "Apostle" Raymond wanted to try and convince me that Hagin's idea of faith was the correct one - what idiocy! - and that he wanted me to join his church. Then God let me know what the meeting was actually for - I had a prophetic word for "Apostle'"Raymond.
We met at a little hamburger joint near my house and ordered burgers for lunch. We sat down while waiting for the burgers and he asked me a little about myself and I told him how God had me give up my executive search firm in 1983 and stay home and read the Bible for eight hours a day - start in the beginning and read it through, over and over and over - for nine months. Then He had me sell everything I had and led me into the wilderness for the next thirty eight years, continuing to read through the Bible, not reading books about the Bible, but just reading the Bible itself from beginning to end and let the Spirit of the Lord teach me what He wanted me to learn, not what man wanted me to learn.
The hamburgers arrived and we started to eat. I then told him that I had a prophetic word for him and that it was in the form of a question. "Why do you think you are so important?" ( I was hoping that he would respond as the church elder I mentioned at the beginning of this message had, I was sure that he would. I was sure he would humble himself before the Lord and see what he was doing.) I could see the pride in him rise up and he pompously said that he didn't think he was important. I told him that God saw what his real thoughts were and so did I. I told him that he was trying to make himself look important by always referring to himself as "Apostle" Raymond, that he obviously took great pride in that title. He started arguing about it and I told him to argue with God, not me, because I'm just the messenger. I then gave him the verses:
Matt 23:8-10 "But you are not to be called "Rabbi", for you have only
one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth
"father", for you only have one Father, and He is in Heaven. Nor are you to be called
"teacher", for you have one Teacher, the Christ".
His response was "Well, That could be interpreted in several different ways". In other words, he knew he was wrong but had too much pride to admit it. Then he told me that he read my story "In His Sandals"and that I was proud and had a great hatred for the body of Christ, trying to intimidate me. With disdain in his voice he accused me of being self-taught in the Bible, not having gone to one of the "famous" Bible schools. He would have told the real Apostle Paul the same thing. I got up and walked out, I had done the job God sent me to do.
Matt 23:25-28 - Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
Folks, when you run across people who refer to themselves as Apostle so and so, or Prophet so and so, run away from them as fast as and as far as you can. Do not pass Go, do not collect your $200, run away from them immediately. Matt 24:24 - For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
Yes, they can have gifts of the Spirit, they can even have different anointings - God gives them those to test their hearts, to see if they will respond with humility or with great pride. Unfortunately, some let those gifts go to their head and become filled with pride thinking they are great men of God. They are the ones spoken about in Matthew 7:22-23"Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ He will tell them "You didn't do it for Me, you did it to make yourselves look important. You never fooled Me".
The true apostles and prophets would NEVER, absolutely NEVER, NEVER refer to themselves using those titles or allow themselves to be called by those titles. God would put me under the dungeon if I ever referred to myself as "Prophet Clifford", He would discipline me very, very severely. We are here to SERVE the Lord's people, not to lord it over them or act as if we think we are something special. Do not be fooled by these charlatans! Do not become their disciples.
