Hank Kamsteeg &
Candice Osborne

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

Let me again use a term that Intelligent Design has given us. The term is Irreducible Complexity. This means for example, that you cannot reduce the amount of components in a mousetrap.

There are five functional components in a mousetrap of which, if you remove just one of these components you will not have a functional mousetrap.

Christianity is the same.

There are core beliefs and practices that are functional components of Christianity. This gives Christianity an Irreducible Complexity.

If you are not a practicing Christian then your life style, including your sexual orientation, is completely your choice. In fact, you are welcome to do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it. This is the principle of this world.

However, to practice Christianity, or to be converted to Christianity means that you have made another choice, that demands a life style change, that includes the practice of repentance towards God.

One cannot reduce the demands and the commands of God in order to retain a life style and sexual orientation that is not accepted with the practice of Christianity.

If you do so, then you cease to be a Christian or in fact have never become a Christian. A Homosexual, who has repented of his homosexuality is warmly welcomed into the Christian Church in order for them to practice the Christian Faith.

There is no such creature, as a practicing homosexual who is also a practicing Christian.

Irreducible Complexity of Christianity makes this totally impossible!

There are common misunderstandings that are made about Christianity and the Church that may have helped to produce this current crisis:

For example: The Church, like God should be loving and accepting of all people.

Well if the church is to love like God, then like the example that Jesus Christ Himself set, the Church must not accept everyone.

People must meet the conditions of faith for salvation, and they must meet the basic requirements of the practice of faith before they are admitted into the church.

This misunderstanding is quite understandable for two reasons:

One: The love of God has been misrepresented when His love is talked about in terms of being unconditional.

In fact, the experience His love is totally dependant upon meeting the conditions that have been laid down in the New Testament.

Two: That the church exists to help a poor, lost and dying world, which again is another gross misunderstanding.

In fact, the church is a community of believers, who have experienced the love of God by meeting the conditions of His love and who now find themselves 'called out' from the world and separated unto God, requiring a new community for the fellowship of Believers. The Church is 'the called out ones'.

If in the practice of faith, there is clear evidence that an individual has not separated themselves from sins unto death, then clearly they have not heard his voice and are still not converted to Christianity.

Here is a word of advice to the leaders that are trying to break the law of Irreducible Complexity for Christianity. Go and get Islam to change their law of Irreducible Complexity and see how you get on.

I guess we have to see this through the eyes of Jesus. He has already warned us, that this is how it will be in the church.

The goats trying to be sheep
The weeds pretending to be wheat
The Foolish virgins running out of oil
All castles in the sand

When will we learn that the practice of Church is one thing and the practice of the Christian Faith to the saving of one's soul is quite another!

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

There has been a global move of God in the two decades, which have restored the Office of the Apostle and the prophet into the Church.

No doubt a reason why some modern denominations and even some movements do not accept Apostle and prophets is because it takes back church governance out of hands of frightened bureaucrats and places it back into the hands of ministry gift.

Ministry gifts generate faith and victory in the lives of those that are blessed by the revelation that God has given these gifts to the church for the maturing of the saints.

What makes some church leaders understandable frightened of Apostles and prophets and more comfortable with scribes is that these ministry gifts are not dependent on the lifeless decrees of stale and sterile institutionalised religion.

The New Testament declares that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
The prophets see and declare the plan of God, while the apostle implements that direction by anointed governance and leadership.

If the early church required these ministry gifts, then how much more are we now depended upon these gifts for the church to be brought into her last days glory and power.

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

The church is going to have to come to terms with the age and historical era in which we live. Spirituality is now trendy, however with the pressures of our modern world, this kind of spirituality may be more about reducing depression and stress than salvation FROM SIN.

21st Century spirituality is not about going to church, mostly because the general population is very skeptical of institutions. So the mall may have replaced the church for spirituality.

The modern person is getting spiritual help from videos, books, radio, Television and films plus a host of do-it-yourself sources.

The new generation will not suffer boredom easily or quietly. It's better for the church to be anything else: be quirky, be nerdy, be anything than boring.

This modern world is hungry for real experiences, hungry for sensory stimulation, socialization and emotional fulfillment. People are looking for primal experiences and they long for the mystery and mysticism of an encounter with God. The expectation is that the church must help them to achieve this experience.

The challenge for the gospel is in its presentation. It must be presented in a highly experiential, interactive, relational way. We are in a time when we have to realize that if we always do what we have always done we will always get what we have always got. The results speak for themselves.

Somehow we have to find a new user-friendly, mix'n'match approach to modern spirituality where Christianity delivers on its promises without compromising on its content or message.

If not the game is over and the world will, if it has not already, send us packing.

But then again the gospel message never appeals to the world, it only appeals to those who are The Called of God and to those who hear His voice and have not harden their hearts.

I guess to the rest, you could change the church until you are jumping through flaming hoops, introducing incredible lighting displays and dynamic personalities. But to those who are not called and those who do harden their hearts, well they will never be saved regardless?

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

When it comes to parenting I must confess that I am not an expert!

My wife and I have three Children, who are now young adults with ages that range from fourteen to twenty years.

They all still live with us in our family home. And it looks at if it will stay that way for some time yet.

Like most parents we think we could have done better bringing them up.

We are conscious of what we may have done wrong more than what we may have achieved in them or for them.

But one thing we have learnt.

Children have their own personhood.

They are individuals, with their own personalities, volition's and they will be who they are or who they choose to be.

How many parents could avoid much guilt and pain if we only realise that children are and will always be separate from us.

Our problem may be that we think our children are for us, that they exist for the father and the mother and to believe this, means that child's reference is to their parents and to themselves.

Often husbands and wives can fall into the same trap of dependency not fully appreciating the need to recognise the separateness of purpose and function of their husband or wife in reference to themselves.

Where the partners do not have an understanding of their own personhood, destiny and sense of existence apart from their mate.

However, genuine couples will know their partner as someone who has a totally separate personhood.

A healthy marriage comes to terms with such separateness of individuality because true love must allow persons in close relationship with each other, to grow and to be the most of what they are capable of being, (not for the benefit of the partner) but for the benefit of themselves.

And here to children can at times be seen as nothing more than the extension of their parents and never be adequately recognised or fully appreciated as the unique individual or 'otherness' that they are.

Children of those who are in ministry fall prey to this Narcissism when the expectation of people, believe that the child should be as the parent.

No! The child should be what his personhood was created to be and should not conform to a failed understanding of the separateness that makes up the individual's personhood.

The fact is narcissistic individuals are actually unable to perceive their children, their partners and sometimes their friends as being separate from themselves especially on an emotional level.

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

How well did Jesus Teach us, that God in His love 'sends rain and sunshine upon the just and the unjust'. This shows us that God meets the needs of all his creatures and He provides opportunity for such needs to be met.

New Zealand has changed and will never be the same again. Turning back the clock and remembering the good old days of God zone is finished.

Our nation is now made up of multi-cultural and multi-religious groups from all corners of the earth. Our diversity as a nation is seen with the many choices that we can make in how we live out our lives both in relationships and in sexual orientation.

Each group, each culture, each and every person who has the right to express their freedoms in our nation, also lives with the expectation of having representation and protection from government.

The government is the agency which society uses to ensure that the rain and the sunshine falls upon all whom make up the citizenship of our nation.

Therefore, Christian ethical conduct in the face of such changing demographics must come to understand that such rights and freedoms, with its representation and protection to and from government, must be understood, tolerated and ultimately accepted.

The danger for the church is to over believe in the face of the insecurity that we are experiencing in this social change of our country.

These are the challenges and the pressures of a post-modern world, which is now known as the Global village.

Although we must protect, and must have the right of protection, for our traditional family values, we must not be tempted to retreat too far into some fundamentalist ideology, which shuts out opportunity to dialogue with the diverse cultures and lifestyles in our nation. Such ideology has a potential to become idolatry, where we end up with a worldview filled with demonic absolutes and political naiveté.

The real challenge for the New Zealand Church is to find key contextualizing expressions of Christianity as the world evolves further and further away from God and closer to the unity of humanism.

Raging at the world, and shaking our fist at what we disagree with, is no longer an intelligent or integral response.

Is it time for the church to have a deconstructive experience that will force us to re-appropriate Christianity in the face of a modern world?

After all is said and done, renewal, modeling and re-modeling has only changed the way church looks and sounds and in many ways has failed us. Well as least it has developed a great audience!

One thing is for sure; the world does not need another church. It simply needs to see Christianity in action.

Gee, Christianity in action, will that be when they'll know that we are His disciples, quite simple really, isn't it?

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

What never ceases to amaze me is the outright stupidity and shortsightedness of those who lack the insights of the Word of God.

And here we go again, where proven insights into human behavior and child rearing, that has guided humanity for thousands of years, is again about to be ignored.

How true Jesus spoke when He mentioned that, "when the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a ditch".

Intelligent Design has given us the concept of Irreducible Complexity.

That means for example, a mousetrap has five main components. Take away any one of those components then the mousetrap cannot work.

This means that you cannot reduce the amount of components in a mousetrap and still have a functional mousetrap.

Therefore a mousetrap has IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY!

Like the mousetrap, humanity has Irreducible Complexity. To attempt to reduce the complexity of human nature, without the insights of God's word and to state that, 'humans are basically good' is a fool's game, which has always resulted in a false premise upon which humanism has built its concepts of humanity.

Take away the God given understanding that all individuals at birth are fallen, muted, and has a bias towards evil and corruption then you have reduced the complexity of the human heart and when you try to replace what you have taken away from that complexity, the result is an even more dis-functional human being.

God's word, is God's manual to the human race, it helps us to understand what and who we are. It explains to us the condition we are born in and gives guidelines to help nurture, control and tame the nature and even replace the nature that we are born with.

To take away the biblical process of child rearing from parents is to help create a generation of humans who will not have boundaries and who will lack the understanding of accountability to moral government both human and Divine.

What blind leaders do not realize is that when they take away parental authority in the home the result will be a nation that falls into a ditch of the foulest kind, where the new generations will lose sight of their souls and be molded by a new barbarianism having bludgeoned all moral accountability from their hearts through a 'vain philosophy, which is nothing more than cunning deceit of men'!

Yet should we be outraged with such a vision?

I think not!

For surely the tyranny of an anti-Christ system must come to power sooner or later in the hearts and on the backs of those who are even now being shaped by its servants who rule this world and its systems.

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

What I love about the word of God is that it is a book filled with humanity. The Bible not only teaches us about God, it also teaches us how to be human. Throughout it's pages we have a historical record of human failings.

From these national and personal disasters God is able to draw the contrast between the self-induced mistakes of a fallen human heart and the wisdom that can be found in following His guidelines and His principles, which almost assures success and safety with the relationships we will experience throughout our lives.

If there is any time in which our Christian young people need to be encouraged to live according to such guidelines and such principles it must be for today's Christian youth.

What an age they live in.

I would go so far as to ask, how many older people, if they were young in today's world, would survive the pressure that is upon our young people?

I believe when Christian teenagers and young adults can walk and live in the victory of their Lord, in such a world that we are experiencing, then in my book they are heroes!

Heroes of Faith!

But what helps to get such Christian youth through the difficulties of being young, both in years and in faith, is the incredible leadership of Youth pastors, youth leaders and youth organisations.

How blessed we are as a Church when young Christian men and women are willing to stand for Christ and His righteousness both in their personal lives and in His service as role models and leaders for others to follow.

How wonderful it is to see young Christian people proud of their personal standards, maintaining their virginity until God leads them into marriage!

Our greatest hope comes from our most precious and most valued resource: our Children and young people. The world is lying to them and through such lying deceit tries to enslave them through false promises.

One of our first lines of defense from such a satanic attack is the youth leader and youth pastor, who has to struggle with a lack of funds for their programs and often an unrecognized ministry of role modeling, yet, which God uses to save countless Christian youth from the pressure of the world.

In my experience, never stand between a youth leader and their passion for their youth group. The chances are you will be trampled to death if you try too hard to interfere.

World War One taught us the same lesson.

The best thing that could have been done before marching off to the killing fields, would have been to shoot the silly generals, who were so out of touch with the front line, and their men, that it still today defies reason.

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

In a three-year study of nearly 17,000 children ages 9 to 14 they found that 30% of the girls in the US and 16% of the boys were on diets! You would think that this would reduce overweight and obesity? But in fact, children who were frequent dieters gained as much as a kilogram or more each year than those who did not diet.

The problem with children on diets with this result is that they grow up into adults with the same problem. And now over 30% of Americans are overweight and suffer from obesity. Much of which is now being traced to a fat free diet!

There seems to be a couple of killers that will shorten your life expectations by up to 25%. There is the high cholesterol killer, which one British Cardiologist said, 'was being treated with the wrong type of drug or dose and thousands of lives were being lost as a result of poorly managed high cholesterol levels'.

Then there is diabetes. It's a killer, it's slow and attacks all major organs in the body and can cause blindness. 75% of amputations in New Zealand are carried out on Diabetics.

Question: Can any one get it right so that the right dose with the right drug can get to those with high cholesterol levels?

Question: Can any one get the right diet with low fat and low carbohydrate balanced out with the right dose of medication for diabetics?

Question: Is it possible for health professionals to get together in some sort of conference or learn to communicate with each other so that confusion about food, exercise and drugs can come into the public arena with balance and correct methodology?

And then, just may be then we will have a chance!

Or are we to fall back into our theology that gives us a correct world-view and focuses our eschatology.

Which would be: The world has lied to us all and continues to lie to us about the damaged food chain and the resulting health problems that are now facing the developed world.

Not that the world cares or worries about health care, remember what matters is that prices remain high and profits increase.

What do you expect from the Valley of the Shadow of Death; a safe, prosperous, money enriched and healthy life?

How stupidly naïve?
My last word is to thin people. Here is a word of advice.

Most fat people do not over eat; most fat people have received a gene that makes them fat. As with diabetes, it usually comes through the DNA of a family and not because the victim eats too many cakes or ice cream.

So to the self-righteous thin person who gives fat people a hard time. Stop displaying your gross ignorance and stupidity. Stop being unbearably self-righteous about how thin you are and learn to keep that mouth of yours with its cutting remarks shut, while you are in the presence of fat people.

In your folly you lack compassion and love towards those who may be suffering from medical difficulties.

By the way most gluttons that I have counseled with huge eating disorders have been skinny people.

So back off??????

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

When we consider the drug and alcohol abuse that has destroyed thousands of families and millions of lives throughout the world, we quickly and rightly conclude that there is a devil that is a liar and a thief, he is a murderer, and he will use any means at his disposal to kill and rob families of loving relationships including murdering actually family members.

Through all forms of addictions there is created enslavement to substance abuse that destroys the soul and wrecks havoc with the mind and body of the slave addict.

We've come to understand that this is part of the corruption that we must face and endure as we pilgrim through this world, better known by Ps 23 as the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

But as we look closer at this corruption and crime that is perpetuated against humanity, we not only see the devil at work, we also see the corruption and the deep personal depravity of a fallen humanity.

2 Peter 1:4 tells us that those who have been born again by the Spirit of God have 'escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust or evil desire'.

Yes, there is the devil at work, but behind that devil is a human heart with lust and evil desires that helps to create the corruption that is in the world.

Behind every corrupt deed and corrupt sinful act that takes place on this planet there is a human heart with lustful, evil desires behind it!

Behind the drug addict is the drug pusher, behind the drug pusher there is the drug manufacturer, behind the drug manufacturer is the farmer or chemist that produced the raw materials to create the drugs.

And behind them all is a human heart that lusts with deep personal greed for the love of money, which is the root of all evil.

No wonder the bible declares that there is no such thing as the basic good of a person. For all have sinned and have fall short of God's standard.

John Wesley who faced a gin-addicted nation with the claims of the Good News used his passion, and the Fire of the Holy Spirit, to denounce the brewers of the gin houses that had enslaved his nation.

He warned them that their hands dripped with the blood of old and young and that every penny they made out of the misery of others would be extracted from their souls in the fires of hell.

When it comes to drug pushers and drug manufacturers, I guess John Wesley's warning is about the closest they will ever get to knowing how God really feels about their parasiting existence, which is a miserable excuse for a human life.

I guess if we want to see the results that Wesley had, we are going to have to preach what he preached?

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

It is good that our citizens should band together to bring protest and pressure to both central and local governments.

It is good for democratic process to be pressed-hard-against and stretched in order to see what stuff it really is made of.

And although the church has rallied its ranks and has confronted each moral issue the government is hell-bent to Reform and pass into law, historical records show that, in no way, has such protest or pressure from citizens, or from the church, caused the government to ever take heed and draw back from the intention of passing such laws.

From the Homosexual Law Reform Bill, until this year when on the 28th of June 2003, The Prostitution Law Reform Act came into force.

The picture is always the same. Battle cries of morality and petitions a plenty, which bring a blank response from those who seek to Reform the proven moral standards that have helped to keep our society conscious of right and wrong.

However, opportunity is not lost, there is still time to intervene and it is not too late to intervene.

If anything, The Prostitution Law Reform Act is now closer to the people than it was in central government.

And so, local lobby groups have yet enough time, to form and create strategy, to be able to win the day and bring change to minimise the impact that this Reform may bring to local communities.

I think that the average New Zealander may not be conscious of the power they have, when it comes to Parliamentary democracy.

As voting people we need to ask:

What is the use of sending Members to the House, who say just the politically correct things in order to give satisfaction to the government?

What is the use of sending Members to the House, when such members walk over and walk through the lobby groups of those who place them there, being oblivious to people representation?

What is the use of sending Members to the House, when party politics will return them back to their electoral offices; tame, docile and subservient Members having all forms of independent opinion stamped out of them?

I have a curious suggestion.

Don't hire them!

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

Over the many years as I have read and re-read and preached the messages and the insights that I have gained from Dr Rob Wheeler,a couple of principles have stood out which are now part of the guidelines I use, by which, I work out my salvation, in fear and in trembling.

First, I have to get wisdom. I have to go to the ant to learn how to be wise. I have to go to the sloth and the sluggard to gain wisdom.

It is with all my getting I must get wisdom.

And second, with whatever wisdom I have learnt and still am learning, it is "I" that must make-ready my heart and soul, for the return of the Lord. If not for His return, then certainly, I have to get ready for my death.

For if He does not return to me in His Second Coming. I will certainly go to Him when my life is over. This means that I have a responsibility and a duty before anything else, before anyone else, which is:

I must save myself from this world, overcome this flesh, renew this mind, transform this heart, in order for me to become a partaker of the world to come.

I quote from Dr Rob Wheeler's book The Overcomer. When he writes: quote

"There are some catastrophic events that are going to happen; but before this, the Lord has a message to the Church; twenty two times He calls to Christians to become "Overcomers".

The theories we have known for years about the 'man-child", the "Bride of Christ", etc are all beautiful, but right now God is getting us down to the "nitty-gritty" of living.

He is saying, "I am putting you through some practical experiences in order for you to be in My Last Day plan".

The thing that matters today is how we live our daily life in relationship to the events and pressures that are upon us.

Twenty two times we are commanded and encouraged as the Lord Himself speaks of the victory that God has for the person "that overcometh".

If this truth can grip our hearts, it will affect every aspect of our life." Unquote

And without any doubt, I have to say that such a truth has gripped my heart and it has affected my life.

My personal thanks to Dr Rob and Beryl Wheeler.

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

It has been said, that when we are born we are programmed with a question.
And that question never leaves our minds or hearts all the days of our lives.
The question is asked at every turn we take, every experience we have and the question is ever present in the face of all the memories we hold.

What is the question I hear you ask?

Well the question we are programmed with is this:
Will my life be worth living?

I will repeat the question.

Will my life be worth living?

That is why young people are always fascinated with the future. As they look down towards the years ahead of them the question is ever present…
Will my life be worth living?

When talking with older people or with retired people one will often find that their conversation is filled with past events and memories of what they have achieved or have not achieved.

They will talk and recount the people they meet, the wars they fought, the children they had, the career and job they worked at, the life they lived.

As older people look back at their lives, they to are asking the question we all have been programmed with, when we first arrived on this planet.
Was my life worth living?

I bring this question to your attention and especially, I bring this question to the attention of my guests Rob and Beryl Wheeler, because my exhortation to them tonight, is to assure them that when this question comes to their minds and hearts, when this question visits their memories and their life experiences, I want their answer to the question to be Yes!
Yes, our lives together as a married couple and our lives lived for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ was well worth the living!

I do not pretend to understand the pain, the suffering, the trials and difficulties including the sacrifices of their life.

I will not insult their intelligence by suggesting that fifty years of marriage and fifty years of Christian Ministry service was a walk in the park.

But to all the moments where it seemed that life was not worth the living I humbly submit that God had, in every way and at all times, been faithful in working out his glorious plan, which was not only to touch Rob and Beryl's generation, but also through their lives and through their ministry, touch generations to come that will rise and call them blessed of the Lord!

Like John Wesley who gave the Body of Christ the Methodist Church, Rob and Beryl Wheeler helped to establish and to give to New Zealand, the witness and the testimony of The New Life Churches, which can now been found in almost all towns and in all cities throughout our nation.

Was their life worth living?
On behalf of a new generation of Christian I say, "Yes well worth the living! And thank you for living it so well!"

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

1Tim 3:15. The latter part of the verse reads, "…God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."

I often think when we talk about the church, how we have lost so much of what was in Paul the Apostles mind when he first wrote those words.

The verse reminds us to think of the church, as she really is, the church of the living God, a home and household of living people.

The church is to house both God and people who are living together in relationship, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

For 20 centuries the church has housed and been a home for humanity.

She is a consecrated community of people baptized into fellowship of the church, which is the household of the living God.

Each born again believer is immortally welcomed into the God's household of faith.

Your life, my life, may disappear from mortal sight and from all the homes and houses we may own and live in during our time on earth. But there is one dwelling in which we shall abide forever and that is the church of the living God. God's household is for living human beings.

Could it be that in the quest for church growth, and in the name of leadership, the voice of the church has become muffled and its message superficial?

The real quest of the church is to house the living, and when life is not given a chance the living God will re-invent the church, pouring her from one wine skin to another until life again fills the souls that crowd His dwelling.

When we enthrone and overvalue the mechanical forms and models of church, we undervalue the life that she is to contain.

Are we still to learn the lesson that the mechanical forms and models of church are only a means to an end and are not to be an end in themselves?

The church is to hold and use these things always as the means to life.

If Micro-Churches or Mega Churches, or any other model of church, have become an end to why we exist, then the life of God and the life of the church have already died.

However, if we see in each model of leadership and each model of church structure an emphasis to maintain and to create both the life of God and the redemption of humanity then we have found again what was in the mind and heart of the great apostle when he wrote to us, "God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth".

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

I understand that the first reformation like most reformations is caused because men and women of God have the strength of character and Godliness, including the intelligence, to understand that the church was corrupt.

Usually that corruption is centered on two things Leadership and money.
That is, corrupt leadership (usually not knowing the scriptures or at best misunderstanding the scriptures) using their power to get more money and even more power.

I wonder how close to a new reformation many contemporary churches really are?

It is again quite usually for popes to help create the right environment for Reformation. Like Popes, some leaders sit on their thrones and rule with the same infallibility, as did the reigning popes of the Middle ages.

It would seem that once a church reaches a certain size then the senior leader almost becomes the Vicar of Christ. Not only hearing detailed conversations from the Son of God on how to lead and rule, but also receiving instructions on how to run a nation if not the nations of the world.

The contrast between Christ and leadership can easily be made.
Jesus washed his disciples feet, but unless you kiss up with fear, the chances are you will be excommunicated for not be being a team player.

Jesus shouldered His cross for all to see. Yet some leaders addiction to praise is such that unless they are carried shoulder high and receive love by their adoring congregations chances are there is rebellion in the church.

Jesus drove out the money-changes from the temple, clearly a mistake by today's standard. Could it be that we have fallen away from repentance into penance where the only sure and clear manifestation of sorrow for sin is seen by the money given, and according to some, if not enough is given, the God of love will in fact curse you with a great curse.
Today the new Vicars of Christ no longer call it indulgences; the old heresy goes by the name of prosperity.

There was once a time when true spirituality was an inward revelation of heart felt contrition and the confession of sorrow for sin and sins committed against a holy but loving God.

Today spirituality is manifested by the outward display of materialism. Where one's house, car, job, beach-bach, boat, and the all-important love offering indicates the spiritual state of the believer not to mention his adoring relationship with the leader.

When should a reformation come to a church or a church movement?
I think about now would be a good time to hear from a reformer, don't you think?

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

Part of the deep experience of evil on this planet is to witness the needless sorrow and pain that is willfully inflicted upon the countless, nameless and faceless millions upon the earth.

Man's ability to perpetrate such radical evil upon his own kind, gives testimony not only too satanic influence of the god of this world, but also bears witness that the human heart is willing to be influence by such evil and to carry out creative, political, socio-economical, ecological and religious cruelty upon its self.

Those who still believe that mankind is basically good and that human nature is only slightly off center, only needing a reform now and then to pick things up, belong to the worst kind of evil.

They are the self-righteous.

The self-comforted, the Pharisee leader and guide whose world view of human nature will end in the same ditch with all those who will not allocate responsibility to themselves for the horror that passes for human life on this planet.

Such blind impenitent fools can perform astounding feats such as straining at a Nat and are able to swallow a camel all at the same time when dismissing the adverse and radical cruelty of this world as a mere freak accident. Not able to see that the condition of the human race is nothing more than the outward manifestation of the inward corruption, of man's deep personal depravity as a fallen creature.

Of all the evils of the human heart, the self-righteous, above all, hate the light and will not come to the light. Because in such a light they will see that by looking into the condition of the world, they in fact will see the condition of their own heart.

Their sin is being high minded and standing oppossed to human suffering as if they did not contribute to its sorrow.

The millions that suffer do not suffer because they are less a human than any one else. Those who have not experienced the deep need of want, are in no way superior to those who lack.

The enlightened sinner, the converting soul under the influence of the light of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, understands that all that is in the world is a representation of all that is in each human soul.

So to the self-righteous who live out their life, believing that they can do what they like, as long as they do not hurt or harm others, allow me to wake you up out of your slumber of sin and say, Your life has already hurt and has already harmed, if only, the Son of God who died to take away the sins of the world.

How does this comment speak to the human need of which we have heard about tonight?
The experience of evil on this planet of which I have already mentioned can only be stopped as each human being comes to that place of repentance and turns from the resident evil within, to the Living God.

In the mean time, through the goodness and kindness of His love, He motivates agencies, societies, and aid organisations to relieve human suffering.
Just as He sends the sun and the rain upon the just and the unjust!

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

Poverty, unemployment, street violence, the breaking down of old established social systems and concepts of welfare, will all be part of the new landscape of global capitalism of which New Zealand belongs to.

More and more we will see an increase of the poor and real poverty as the realities of global market economies drive multinational corporations into unrestricted international free trade.

To help this social crisis along we will see more job losses through new technologies and the decline of trade union movements.

Governments who lack enlightened social policy will continue to restructure the welfare state until social hardships will become a way of life in New Zealand.

Those who cannot, or who will not, keep pace with the changes of the global village through further adult education and on going career changes, or at least an awareness of the social crisis that now exists in this post modern world, will pay a high price for loyalty to cultural and spiritual interpretation of what this modern world now is and will become.

The collapse of communism and socialist states now leaves the world without a challenge and opens the world to "global capitalism" with its despiritualizing of populations in order to make them into consumers.

The picture before us will be marginalization and continued impoverishment for masses of people, as the middle class will be ripped out of the equation creating a new class order of the very rich and the very poor.
Injustice and income disparity with financial instability will be the experience of most people groups with increasing concentration of power and wealth into the hands of the few.

If the church is going to address these issues and create a social contextualizing message, it better come up with more than just tithing and giving as the main response to poverty.

The Prosperity doctrine will be shown woefully lacking any substance as a solution to the socioenomic crisis that will face the teeming millions of this world.

The deeply threatening changes that are taking place in our world, within our country, within our cities, within our lives, will have un-imagin-able consequences for any individual's culture, race and faith.

I know, that those who are coming to grips with an understanding of the times we are now living in, are those who (with some passion) are beginning to pray, "Come Quickly Lord Jesus".

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

I start my closing remarks with the insight supplied by The Forum's very own announcer and my Associate Pastor Ken Thomsen.
His revelation is both from God and from Ps 23.

When considering the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" Ken remark's that for the Christian one's entire life, lived here on planet earth, is lived, in the 'valley of the shadow of death'! Death in itself is not the valley. It's this place in which we live our entire life, which is the valley, with death's constant shadow cast over it.

When the Christian at last enters into the ultimate of all human experiences, that is "our death", only then, the smoke from all our personal battles will clear, only then, will this horrid world, on which death casts its shadow, will finally vanish, it is only then, that our lives move forward into broader destinies of eternity, only then, will we realise the cruelty and the brutality of the corruption that we live under while living here on planet earth.

For the most part, many Christians remain docile and unaware of the immense wickedness that rules this world, and many seem to be lost to a dream that has parted with biblical reality about their pilgrimage and the environment that is necessary to create saints.

To change this world to be better suited for Christian families, better marriages, more righteous society, where there is no war or violence, let alone corruption, is to outline the mythical dream that has captured, in many ways, the contemporary believer.

Where the desire and the entitlement of the church to receive respect and goodwill from the world belong to the deception that comes from loving this world.

The world, and the system of the world, is rushing forward to a global dictatorship and a totalitarian system, that will never accept the message of the church.

There are many misunderstanding and disputes concerning the role of the Christian Church as we journey through this valley, one of those roles is to prepare believers to live in the formidable anti-Christ system and the adverse conditions that we will meet in these last days.

I do not underrate what lies before us as Christians in the days ahead, but if we understand that the purpose of the pilgrimage is to create saints and that saints are not created in a vacuum, I believe we will endure to the end.

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

Scripture Union in its long history of evangelism covers many decades of faithful witness to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And like all Christian organisations that are committed to evangelism the work is nothing short of war, war in this world and war against this world, for the souls of men and women, young people including boys and girls.

And what a tremendous struggle this war presents to the evangelising Christian Church. After 2,000 years of church history the war for souls has never ceased and will continue to the day of His appearing.

The vision for evangelism and the reason for evangelism have remained the same from the day the Lord first commissioned the preaching of the Gospel.

Each Christian, born again and made new is no longer the slave of sin but has become the servant of righteousness. Therefore as His servants we have duties to perform for the Master of the house.

As His servants we have a code of conduct that we must be true to.
As His servants we must bear ourselves humbly before God, conscious that we serve an unfolding purpose of being a co-worker with Him as He reaches those whom He has ordained to eternal life.

Often in the war of evangelism, those on the front line of service can feel that they are fighting by themselves alone, yet they are not fighting by themselves alone.

All Christians who serve in the army of Christians, who evangelise, are Christians who have at last understood the meaning of servant-hood and they have understood their place in the battle that rages around those who believe not.

There is a lot talk about being Sons of God, even that we are gods ourselves.
But I say, that the day is too early to have such high notions of our selves and of our position before God. May be when the harvest is in and the sickle is at rest we may have the luxury of talking about special titles and positions in the Fathers house.

Usually Christians who have failed at servant hood talk about being Sons and gods. Could it be said that they belong to the elite rank of sympathetic onlookers who are cursed with the curse of doing nothing to help with the battle for souls?

A lazy spirit that prefers to be served rather than to serve has rotted them from within. And they have been smitten from without by a spirit of worldliness that will explain why many of them will not engage in evangelism on any level.

It is only to His servants who have served His purpose that the Master will say, "Well done you good and faithful servant".
But before these words are spoken from the Master, the servants must have the determination and sober acceptance of their duties, one of which is to evangelise.

Wayne's Closing Remarks:

Allow me to share an insight that one of my associate pastors Eddie Yoshida recently shared in church. It was concerning prophecy and how prophecy should be able to exhort, encourage and edify the ones who receive such words.

He took us to the prophecy that Paul the apostle received from the prophet Agabus in Acts Chapter 21:10. Agabus came to Paul binding up his own hands and feet with the belt that belonged to Paul. He then prophesied, "The Holy Spirit says, in this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles".

Now on the surface one would conclude that this prophecy certainly is not a word that brought comfort, exhortation or encouragement.

However, when one understands the will of God that was mapped out for Paul the Apostle, which was spoken to him by Ananias in Acts chapter 9:16. Then things do not appear so bad. The prophetic insight that Ananias gave Paul at his conversion spoke to Paul of "how much he must suffer…" for the name of the Lord.

So by the time we get to Acts chapter 21 and Agabus's prediction of Paul's arrest, which clearly involved suffering, with Paul nearly being whipped and finally shipped off to Rome for trial, it came to Paul the Apostle as a prophecy filled with, comfort, consolation and confirmation, proving that he was in fact, in the centre of God's will, which was spoken to him from the beginning.

Now who would have thought that Agabus's prophecy would have encouraged Paul's heart to the point that he proclaims, " I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem and for the name of the Lord".

I wonder what kind of a reaction we would have to this kind of prophecy predicting suffering?
In fact what kind of a reaction would we have if from the very beginning of our Christian experience we were told, as Paul was told, that our spiritual journey would be filled with suffering for the name of the Lord.

As we fall headlong towards the end of the world, or at least towards- The Days of Sorrow, I find it incredible how few leaders and how few prophetic voices are preparing the church for the things that it must suffer for the name of the Lord in the days that lie ahead.

I fear that too many contemporary prophets prophesy by the spirit and doctrine of the Nicolaitans and by the spirit and doctrine of Balaam.

Now you can discern these kind of prophets because of the insight that Jeremiah from the (Old Testament) gives us. Jeremiah Chapter 23 (Living Bible makes it very clear)

He tells us that false prophets will encourage and compliment those who do evil. They will not preach repentance! T