Cranbrook Fellowship 2000 Russell Stendal - Elijah (Warnock Introduction) — George Warnock

I believe my brother, before I mention that brother that just spoke, Brother Zer, has a beautiful little writing. Finding the Church, The Quest of a Pilgrim, Looking for the True Church. You'll enjoy reading it.

We don't put books out here. I just sort of felt, as far as I'm concerned personally, that we would not have books and tapes and the like. I thought we'd give them free. I know, but there's exchange of money, and it always reminds me of the temple.

The Temple and the Purpose of Christian Fellowship

They were just doing the services of people. They needed an oxen. They needed a pigeon. They needed a turtle dove. We'll bring it into the temple. I'm not saying this is the temple of God, but and make merchandise of it.

So anyway, I'd like people to be here to fix their eyes on the Lord, not to be going over and getting books to read. I write books, and I'm thankful for the many hundreds, thousands of letters I've received.

Hundreds at least, of people who have been helped. But we come here to worship the Lord and to receive of Him. So maybe Albert has brought some of his books. I don't know, but you'll enjoy the quest of not only him, but he speaks of many others that he knows of.

And we find that when we find a brother, a sister, who loves the Lord Jesus with all their hearts. Not a Baptist Christian. Not a Pentecostal Christian. Not a Presbyterian Christian. You know, not an end-time moved Christian.

Not a kingdom Christian. A Christian, anointed of God. We like the hybrids, you know. Are you a Christian? Yeah, yeah, I'm a Catholic. Are you a Christian? Yeah, I'm a Baptist. Isn't it enough to have the anointing of the Lord Jesus on our life?

Russell, are you here, and you still have that word burning within you? Oh, he could speak all night, and I know he won't, but I mean, I was very much encouraged when I heard his story. Life story. Young man, but he's got a life story.

Sitting on his father's knee. Father, I think, looking through the National Geographic, looking at the horrible condition of the Kogi Indians in Columbia. Poor, what was it? Cocaine. Grow up on it, you know, and his heart went out, and he says, Dad, why doesn't somebody help those Spurindians?

Oh, Dad says, nobody cares, I guess. You care, don't you? Well, sure, I care. Well, why don't you help them? Well, he says, missionaries go over to do things like that. You can't really. Well, why don't you become a missionary?

Well, God's got to call you. He goes over and kneels down at the age of five and prays for four. God, make my dad to be a missionary. And that became the word of the Lord to his dad. Couldn't shrug it off, a successful engineer in Minnesota within five years.

The whole family was in Columbia. It doesn't look like a martyr, but he spent four months or more, I think, in a guerrilla, communist guerrilla camp, hanging up in a hammock, tied to a guard. But anyway, he doesn't glory in those things, but his glory is in the Lord Jesus.

A Missionary Call Confirmed Through Sacrifice

It truly is a pleasure to be among the people of the Lord. I've been greatly blessed tonight already, and I know that in the natural, there's nothing I could possibly add to what God is doing. I remember, I think it was four years ago or so, I was coming back from a trip and planning to go from Minneapolis to Vancouver and a few other things and then back to Columbia.

And Brother Clayton Sandmore suggested that I stop in and see George Warnock here in Cranbrook. And I had a vague idea of who he was. And I came and he was very kind and gracious to me and gave me a copy of each of his books.

And he asked me a few questions, and I'm afraid that I did most of the talking. And then the Lord sent me back to Columbia, a little more unexpectedly, and when I got there, I had a problem. I had, on my trip, been speaking in a little church, and my two daughters didn't want to go to the Sunday school that was downstairs.

And since I was the preacher, the invited guest, I wanted my kids to be an example. So I grabbed one in each hand, and they were crying, and I dragged them down these stairs and forced them into this Sunday school with these strange kids that they didn't know what to do with.

Well, unbeknownst to me, one of those little kids had chicken pox down there and infected my girls, who then infected me. I had never had the chicken pox. So I got home just in time to get the chicken pox, which as an adult, it's not as nice of a thing as when you're a child.

And I had a very bad case of the chicken pox and was in bed for a couple months. And the only thing I had to do was to read George's books that he'd given me. And the Lord used that to do a major U-turn in my life and ministry, where I began to see that many of the plans and programs that I was a part of weren't really the sovereign will of God.

Yes, there are things that God will bless for a season. But friends, we're in a day now where the times come to an end for those things that are a mixture of God and us, in terms of our own human leaven into the kingdom of God.

There has been a time, the scripture says that in the time of ignorance God overlooked, but now he's calling on all men everywhere to repent. Paul preached that to the Gentiles who hadn't known anything.

And we're in a situation in the church today where there's been so much confusion and the enemy has done so much devastation. There's been so much twisting of the Word of God and of what is the representation of God on the earth that many Christians are in ignorance as to what God really wants and requires.

But God is sounding a trumpet now, a call of preparation because we are coming to a day of atonement where there's going to be a house cleaning in the house of God. There's going to be a cleansing and a purging.

And for those who are willing and for those who will not draw back from the altar of God, from those who will not withhold everything that they have and are from the dealings of God, it's going to be a glorious thing.

But for those who are typed by Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts who pretended and acted as if they had given everything, that they had really held something back. And Peter said they had not lied to man, they had lied to the Holy Spirit.

And the consequences were devastating and after their death, it says, the fear of the Lord went through the church with the idea that for some time this was the case. Friends, if God were to really come into our midst, He would expose what's in our hearts.

And for some of us, it would be a glorious thing to have God in our midst. But for others, it would be a devastating thing. In the book of Malachi, the Prophet says, when He comes, who will they withstand?

His presence, because He's going to come like a refiner's fire, like fuller soap. The great and terrible day of the Lord is about to dawn. And as someone said, it's going to be great if we're in Christ.

It's going to be terrible if we're not. And what I hear, and what I sense, what I feel in the Spirit, what's burning in my heart, is that this is a day of preparation still. There's still a little more time.

There's still a chance to put everything on the altar of God. You remember John the Baptist, who came as a forerunner to the Lord Jesus Christ in His first coming. In the Gospel of Luke, Zechariah, his father, prophesied that he'd come in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare the way.

And you remember his message. It was a message of repentance, because the axe is laid to the fruit of the tree. And he called upon men to demonstrate not only alligator tears, but the actual fruit of repentance, a change.

A little later on in the Gospels, in Mark chapter 9, verse 12, Jesus said, Elijah verily cometh first and restoreth all things. And I've been meditating on this little passage, all things, about the restoration of all things.

It's a theme that we could trace throughout Scripture. Elijah is going to restore all things. I thought Jesus was going to restore all things. John the Baptist wasn't received by the scribes and Pharisees.

John the Baptist, according in the Gospel of Luke here, chapter 7, verse 29 says, and all the people that heard him and the publicans justified God being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized by him.

How do we justify God? We justify God. We tell God he's right and we're wrong. The ones that were baptized by John said, we're wrong and God's right. But the Pharisees and the lawyers were in essence saying, we're right.

And they couldn't understand the plan of purpose of God and Jesus Christ because they didn't submit to the baptism of John. And so in Mark 9, the verse that I just read, and he answered and told them, Elijah verily cometh first and restoreth all things.

And how it is written of the Son of Man that he must suffer many things and beset it not. But I say unto you that Elijah is indeed come and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed as it is written of him.

But friends, the Jews missed it because they thought the first coming and the second coming were all one event and they couldn't understand how God was only fulfilling certain things in the first coming of Jesus Christ and they were looking for something that they didn't see.

And the cross was a stumbling block to them. And friends, as we're growing near to the second coming, I believe that there is a John the Baptist ministry, not a single John the Baptist, but a corporate prophetic voice coming forth saying, prepare the way of the Lord.

Make straight the paths of the Lord because the Lord is coming back. And what's he going to find in his people? And there's still time to enter into what which is symbolized by the baptism of John. I don't think that today necessarily would be a literal thing like we don't need to head for the Jordan River.

But we do need to come into that which is typed by that baptism in death to self in that Jordan River. John the Baptist didn't have miracles. There was nothing about his physical appearance that would draw men to him.

But the anointing of God was told by a Hebrew scholar that the name Elijah could literally be translated God himself. Or the Lord is God. It's so close that when Jesus was on the cross saying, my God, my God, they thought he was calling Elijah.

It's just almost exactly identical in Hebrew. And friends, God himself came on the scene to John the Baptist and put an anointing there that was so strong that began to draw men to repentance. And it says the publicans and the sinners and the ones that knew that they were in big trouble, they went and then they could understand the plan of purpose of God and Jesus Christ.

They were ready, but others were not. Where are we going to be found? Here in Cranbrook, there's nothing, for instance, about the ministry here of George Warnock that would draw men to him. First time I met him, I didn't see very much that impressed me.

Second time I paid a little bit more attention because God had got my attention. You see, friends, there's a ministry going forth in this day where there's not spectacular signs and wonders, not spectacular blessings coming down on the people of God, but it's a call to preparation.

And repentance for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see what the spirit of God is doing in this hour. And like George Warnock, there are many others that I found that are part of a prophetic company.

Some of them don't even know each other according to the flesh, but you can immediately tell in spirit in Luke chapter one. It says what this ministry is going to do. Verse 68, this is the prophecy of Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist.

And I believe this prophecy is still part of it to be fulfilled today as the ministry of John the Baptist or of Elijah is being completed. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which he have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies.

And from the hand of all that hate us and friends in those enemies is sin and death to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. Friends, God wants to remember his holy covenant.

What is this covenant? What is the new covenant? That he'd write his commandments on the tablets of our heart, that we're to be dead in Jesus Christ and he's to be alive in us. To bring us into a covenant, into a contract with God, which we sign by giving up our own way as symbolized by water baptism and which he signs by putting his holy spirit on us and sealing us.

When that contract has those two signatures, becomes valid at the death of the one of whom it's the testament. And Jesus died and he's given us a chance to die to ourselves so that he can come forth and he wants us to remember that covenant.

Because friends, the covenant of God has become twisted. There are people out there presenting covenant that isn't the real covenant. It's got some things the same and other things different and they're trying to get it to operate in a different manner.

The real covenant is we have to give up our own way. What is the blood that covers us? In Leviticus, it says the life is in the blood and the word life and soul in Hebrew are the same word. Just translated soul or life according to the context in English.

So when it says that Jesus gave his life for us and he would also really give his soul for us, he gave, he put all of his own plans and ambitions and everything of being a Messiah in his own right on the altar and chose only to please his father and then rose from the death victorious and sent us the Holy Spirit.

There's a confusion among the saints today. We'd like to separate God into three parts and pick and choose. For those who don't want to submit to the lordship and authority of Jesus Christ, well, then how about let's have a relationship just with the Holy Spirit and get all the gifts and blessings that he can shower upon us.

Now as I've been searching the scriptures, I've not found any verses that direct our praise and worship and prayer to the Holy Spirit as an end in himself. Our praise and our worship and adoration is to be directed to God the Father and we're to come through the Son, Jesus Christ to put us in contact with the Father and to give us his Holy Spirit so that the Spirit can purify us and prepare us and teach us to pray as we ought.

We can't pick and choose and divide God up into compartments and take what we want and reject the rest and end up with a superficial carnal Christianity that wants gifts and blessings and is estranged from God the Father because no one without holiness can see God.

Friends, if our relationship with God the Father is broken, we have to come through the Son and even the Son isn't an end in himself. He wants to bring us into contact with the Father. He's not trying to lift himself up.

He already demonstrated that. He laid it all down and that's why God exalted him above everything else. We need to understand God's word will stand even if our doctrines don't. Verse 74 here, that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear.

Friends, the Lord has had to do some major work in my life to deliver me from fear. I can remember saying with Job, the thing that I feared the most has befallen me when I got kidnapped by the gorillas.

And God had to take me through that fear and out the other side. And now I don't fear the gorillas anymore. So many of God's people serve with fear. Fear of man, fear of this, fear of that, fear of what they're going to think, fear of rejection, fear of the government, fear of going to some faraway place where things are not the same as we're used to or whatever.

Love, Holiness, and the Restoration of God’s People

Scripture says that perfect love casts out fear. That redemptive love of Jesus Christ that would flow in and through us. That love that's a decision. He says he had, God the Father had this love, this agape, redemptive love for us.

And in 1 John it says that he had this love and demonstrated because he sent his son. He gave what was most dear to him. God the Father gave that which was dearest to him. And that's how he demonstrated to his love to us while we were yet sinners.

And God's redemptive love begins with sacrifice. If we want his love to flow through us, which is the love that will redeem and will deliver and set free. We have to be willing to lay everything on the altar.

In holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. This is a pretty big order of what's to be restored through this ministry of Elijah. God's people can serve him without fear and in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life.

And thou child shall be called the prophet of the highest, for thou shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways. To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.

God is going to restore the truth. He's going to restore the gospel of the kingdom of God. And it's going to be proclaimed throughout the earth before the end shall come. Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on high hath visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet unto the way of peace.

Friends, there's going to be a true ministry of the gospel of the kingdom before the end comes. What did Elijah do? If we'll turn to 1 Kings chapter 18, I believe. Just have some thoughts here. No, I'm sorry.

It's, yes, 1 Kings chapter 18 verse 30. Do you remember the story? There had been a drought for three and a half years. It was debatable whether any of the livestock would survive. There was a famine in the land.

And running between the lines, there was another problem. The fire of God had gone out. You remember how the fire of God was lit by God himself? Moses records how God lit the fire to consume the sacrifice.

There was no provision for relighting the fire by human means if the fire would go out on the altar of God. And friends, things are such a sad state in the church today that in many places the fire is out.

And it's so bad that when the altar is proclaimed, you can't even offer a sacrifice on it. God won't receive it. He won't receive sacrifices once things have been polluted beyond a certain degree. And there are places where God has totally walked away from.

And the fire is out. And no amount of humans thriving. And we've seen it happen where men have tried to relight that fire. And strange fire has been lit. And it draws people for a season. But it doesn't bring them to righteousness and holiness.

And it produces utter devastation in the end. And Elijah was waiting there as the prophets of Baal tried everything. Remember, Elijah can mean God himself. God himself coming on the scene in a people.

God himself raising up a true prophet in a ministry. In an hour where there's utter hopelessness and helplessness among the people of God. And we're in that situation today. There's a famine in the land.

We've all been out there drinking diet food that has got saccharin and NutraSweet and all of these things. And it won't keep us warm in the cold. There's no calories in it. It tastes good, but it doesn't provide any nourishment.

And people are starting to realize that. That we need the fire of God to fall again. Oh, that the fire of God would fall even as in the days of Wesley and Finney. And so many stories that we've heard where in Finney's campaign in Boston, people would come under conviction even entering the city limits.

Without even getting to the meeting. The bar owners would throw up their hands in despair because there's no more clients and sell out and go somewhere else. The judges put on white gloves because the whole month went by with no criminals to bring into their courts.

Happened in the Welsh revival too. And friends, God isn't interested in just bringing us back to the past. He's going forward into something much more glorious. Friends, the fire of God when it falls has some tremendous consequences.

And requires some preparation on our part. And Elijah began to do the preparation. And Elijah verse 30, 1 Kings chapter 18, verse 30. And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him.

And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. See, that's why I know the fire was out. The altar wasn't even in commission. It was totally broken down. And friends, the altar, according to the book of Exodus, has to be built in a certain way.

The stones can't be huge stones. You can't make a stairs up to it. There's all kinds of conditions. You can't make it out of bricks. God doesn't do things in mold. He doesn't assembly line. You can't come by degrees, by stairs.

You can't say I'll give a little bit today and a little bit tomorrow. He says if you come up by stairs into his altar, he says your nakedness will be exposed. And those who come, try and come in stages and only give a little bit and hold back the rest.

Sooner or later, the devil will attack them in those areas that they would help from the Lord and their nakedness will be exposed and their testimony will be a testimony giving off a foul odor throughout the land.

And Elijah repaired the altar according to God's specifications. And the gospel of the kingdom is going to go forth according to God's specifications, which is we must lay down our arms as rebels and submit to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We must be willing to die to ourselves that he might live in us. And Elijah took 12 stones, the number of divine order, and according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came saying, Israel shall be thy name.

And with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord and he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two measures of seed. In my Spanish Bible, it's worded a little different and it implies that there actually, he actually put two measures of seed in the trench.

Jesus was the good seed that fell into the ground and died to produce a firstfruits company unto God. In holiness and righteousness. And friends, if we're contending for that company as part of those two measures of seed, of that corporate body that he's bringing forth, he's asking us to be willing to lay in that trench around the altar and lay it all down.

If we really want to see the fire of God fall. And he put the wood in order and cut the bullock in pieces. Friends, as God restores his true order and as his true gospel goes forth, he wants the dead wood of all of our religious endeavors that we've thought up on our own apart from him.

He wants it all laid on the altar. The bullock of everything having to do with the flesh, he wants it cut up in pieces and laid on the altar. Fill four barrels with water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.

And he said, do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, do it the third time. And they did it the third time. When things are emphasized three times in Scripture, it's very important.

And the washing of the water by the word. God wants to pour that water on. He wants to pour it on that sacrifice and he wants to pour it on that altar and he wants to pour it on that trench with the two measures of seed.

He does not want any spontaneous combustion going on among the grain. Doesn't want any fire lit other than by him. Doesn't want any possibility of any fire other than his. He wants to wash us with the water of his word until there is no doubt that he's going to take a sovereign intervention of his until all thoughts of us being able to somehow pull this off on our own.

If we could just get the formula straight, if we could just somehow make God operate according to these principles that we've come up with. God isn't some impersonal power out there that if you could just get the formula straight, he has to move.

On the other hand, I don't believe he's a God that has written out the script in advance and that we have no responsibility. There are certain things that he has planned from advance and he is sovereign.

He's going to bring his plan to being, but he won't override our will. And we can choose to respond to his call or not. We can choose to lay our gifts and abilities at his feet or not. We can choose to allow him to make us a vessel of honor or not.

And sometimes we need his help even to be able to turn and divest ourselves of those things that need to be divested of. And the water ran round about the altar and he filled the trench also with water.

And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known that this day that thou art God in Israel and that I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at thy word.

Friends, would you like to be part of a ministration of God in which we could corporately, collectively say in this day and hour, we're your servants, God, and we've done all these things at thy word.

Could we say it in this conference? Not quite. That's the goal. God wants to bring us there. It's possible in him. As we die to ourselves, we might be. I thought that I was progressing nicely in the Lord and it was filled with a certain amount of joy as the Lord was giving me a pure and clear word.

And then I went to a conference in Grand Rapids where George and Clayton, other men of God, Bob Phillips and some others were there. And afterwards, I left kind of with a sinking feeling. Because I've been paying attention to George and Clayton and Bob Phillips and some of these other men of God.

And I noticed that they just about didn't say any idle words. And in the scripture, it says we're going to give an account for every idle word. And I had to realize that I was still saying idle words.

Oh, God, what's it going to take to get rid of those idle words so that we can come forth and say as a bit Elijah. We're the servants of God, and we've done all these things at his command. That there isn't anything that we're doing that isn't at his command.

The time of the evening sacrifice to God. And I love this line, the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. It's one of three references in scripture that I found to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.

It almost always says Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Why the difference? Why three places it says Abraham, Isaac and Israel and dozens of places it says Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob was a conniver, a surplanter.

He was trying to get the kingdom by hook or by crook. God had to deal with him for a long time. And finally, he came to a place of total surrender and conversion. And God crippled his natural walk to the center that shrank.

And he lived for the rest of his life. But he had a name change and he was converted and he'd seen the face of God and he was never the same. Israel is a converted Jacob. And here God's saying, I'm not just the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I'm not just the God that puts up with a lot of things in my people so that I can train them and teach them and bring them forward. I'm also the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.

I'm the God that can bring about conversion. Bring us to a point of transformation. To the point where we have a new nature and a new name. God's name. Verse 37. Hear me, O Lord, hear me that this people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou has turned their heart back again.

The old Spanish says converted their hearts. Oh, we need the Lord God to convert the hearts of his people. The time of the evening sacrifice drew near. There's been a morning sacrifice and it was the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.

But friends, did you know that in scripture typology, there's also an evening sacrifice? Did you know that the corporate body of Christ, the true overcoming sons of God have to be willing to lay their lives down for their brethren?

That it isn't just John 3, 16, that's where it starts. It's first John 3, 16 that we might have that love that we'd be willing to lay out on our lives for the brethren. And friends, we're going to be tested and proven.

I don't know how many of us will literally have to lay our lives down, but I do know that we're going to be tested on this. If we really want to see the ministry of the gospel of the kingdom go forth, if we want to be a part of it, we're going to be tested on this.

That thou has turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell. Notice that then, then the Lord fell. The God had turned their hearts totally back to himself. The prophet was crying out and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench.

And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, He is the God. The Lord, He is the God. And I'd just like you to notice for a second, and I'm almost done. What happened when the fire of God fell?

Falling Before God’s Presence Rather Than the Flesh

The people fell on their faces. I've been in a lot of places where 100 of the people have been falling on their backs. Not a good sign. I wouldn't mind if a few fell on their backs or even if it was 50 -50, but all of them all the time on their backs.

Oh, would I ever love to be in a move of God where people fall on their faces before the power of God? And it'll happen when the true fire falls. Judas fell on his back when he went with the mob to, to capture the Lord and betray Him.

Who do you seek? Jesus and others. I am He and they all fall backwards. In Isaiah 28, the drunkards of Ephraim all fell over backwards and were snared. Throughout scripture, when they fell over backwards, it wasn't a good deal.

Some of you may have fallen over backwards. I've had people try and push me over backwards. God wants us to leave the past behind and He wants us to fall on our faces before Him. Ezekiel fell on his face before God.

Isaiah fell on his face before God. The Apostle John fell on his face before God when he saw the Lord Jesus with eyes as a flaming fire. And the Lord Jesus, glorified, is going to come back with that fire in the midst of His people.

And friends, we better hope we fall on our faces and not on our backs like Judas. The fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, consumed the flesh and the wood, the dead works, and the stones, even the divine order up until that point, because God's going to do a new thing under a new order.

He's going to consume the old order. And the dust, even the dust of our Adamic nature and of our humanity, He wants to transform. He wants to give us His nature, according to 2 Peter chapter 1, and licked up the water that was in the trench, even the word.

Friends, when the fire of God really falls, there's not going to be anything there that we're going to be able to lay a claim to and try and build something apart from His order on. We're not going to be able to say we had this message first.

We're not going to be able to say we're the ones that did this or we're the ones that did that. All that's going to be left is the fire of God signing forth and we can be a part of it. I'd like to think about that, the awesomeness of it.