Show me someone who has faith and yet does not believe that his prayers can move mountains and let me show you someone who has faith and believes that his prayers can move mountains. No matter why Martin Luther and co had to break away, they could have maintained the unity and exercised the required obedience and yet achieved what they wanted. There is even another question mark on their decision to break away. They discovered that there were things going wrong in the Church, so they decided to fight but could not have their way. They then decided to take some people and leave the church, to form their own perfect church, leaving behind the masses who they believed were destined for hell. This is selfishness of the highest degree that Jesus would condemn.
I would not be surprised if Luther and his friends were the types who were very good at talking but not good at praying and fasting. I believe that if they combined intensive prayer and fasting with their talking, and exercised enough patience, they would be able to turn around whatever was wrong in the church (if indeed there was something wrong). If they prayed and fasted but God did not change anything, then it means that there was nothing God was supposed to change.
The fruits of obedience, prayer and fasting
Let me give you a live example to make this point very clear. This is something that happened in 1990 in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR), a movement in the Catholic Church. This took place in a prayer group in the Wa Diocese, Ghana. I was not a member of the group then but this incident was related to me by one of the members of the team who is still with the group today and can be contacted for verification.
An outreach ministry (now called Faith Outreach Ministry) was formed based on a revelation to one of the members. This ministry went out to various parts of the diocese to preach the word of God and pray for people (healing and deliverance). God was really using this ministry to heal, deliver and touch people in many ways. Yet after operating for just about a year the leadership of the Church in the diocese stopped them from moving out to evangelize. They were also asked to stop organizing healing and deliverance prayers for the general public. They could only attend their normal prayer meetings and pray together and only pray for individual members of their groups. They couldn’t do more than this.
What would be the reaction of most Christians in this situation? “To hell with the church leaders. It is not only in the Catholic Church that one can serve God. Let’s break away and form our own church and serve God. After all we are not being allowed to serve God in the Catholic Church,” forgetting of unity and obedience. Instead of following this line of thinking, the team took an admirable path worthy of emulation by all.
Now, before you start condemning the leadership of the Church, let me make a few things clear. The leadership was carrying out their responsibility of ensuring that everyone was in line (yes, they have that responsibility and authority). Peter and co did that all the time. They are responsible for ensuring that people do not introduce wrong doctrine or practices into the Church and so whenever they feel unsure about or do not agree with the practices of a group, they have that mandate to intervene. So in most cases, the intention of the leadership is not to stop the group altogether, but to pause them and to observe and ascertain the genuineness of the group, as you will see later. This is where we need to exercise obedience that we are obliged to exercise, and exercise our faith, that if it is indeed God who has instructed and empowered us to do what we are doing He will make a way where there seems to be no way, rather than destroying the unity which is a very key ingredient for evangelization.
It is also worth noting that at this point, some members of the CCR were breaking away from the Church to form their own churches. Some of these with the gift of healing and deliverance would form prayer camps and start “extorting” money from people for healing and deliverance. This was a very unacceptable situation. From the way the ministry was going, it would be very easy for them to break away and form a church.
So the church leaders had good reasons for stopping the ministry, even though if I were in their shoe, I would not do the same. What I would probably do would be to assign a priest to the ministry and let him monitor and report their activities. They would then get to find out that the ministry didn’t have the intention that the leaders were afraid that it had.
Alright, enough on that. Even though the ministry was, by the action of the diocesan leadership of the Church, given good reasons to break away, they did not do that. They rather sat back and prayed their way through.
Starting from the time they were stopped, the ministry used to organize 3 days fasting and prayers every week. During these days of fasting and prayers, they did not sleep in their houses; they would go deep into the bush where they prayed through most of the night and only went back to their homes at dawn to bath and go to work. There were even times when, to add to the suffering of fasting, they would kneel on stones to pray. They did this for one (1) year and then God worked a miracle to restore the ministry.
This happened during one Pentecost vigil. This is a programme that is organized every year, even to date. It is organized on the night before the commemoration of Pentecost where we remind God of what he did for the disciples on the day of Pentecost and ask Him to do the same for us. On that particular day, because they were asked not to organize prayers for people, they just chose to worship Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament (Eucharist). There were two (2) priests present. As the worship progressed, people who were oppressed by evil spirits started manifesting, wailing and falling here and there, without anyone touching them. These priests had to engage in deliverance. In fact, one thing most people outside the CCR (at least within the Catholic Church) believed when people fell during prayers was that they were pushed down by the deliverance ministers. However, that night, these priests, one of whom was chaplain of the CCR for the diocese witnessed something that convinced them that something extraordinary, and of God, was happening in the CCR.
To top it all, this priest (may his soul rest in peace) was so empowered that night that the next day (which was Sunday), his homily (preaching) was extraordinary. While he was preaching, demons were wailing in the church. Following these events, the next day (Monday) the ministry received a letter from the bishop giving them permission to resume their work. Wow! What a mighty God we serve! The angels bow before him, heaven and earth adore him. How many people would be able to do what this ministry did? Truth be told, some people had already left the church for similar reasons. Some of them now regret for leaving the church. Some have even returned. Glory to God in the highest.
Thanks to people who loved God and did everything possible to preserve the unity of brotherhood; people who were obedient to the chosen leaders of God; people of faith and prayer, the CCR is well and firmly established in the Church and has touched many lives. Through the CCR, the ministry of healing and deliverance is once again very active in the Catholic Church and so many people are now benefiting from it. This would never have been possible if everyone else towed the line of Martin Luther and his friends.
Effects of the Protestant “revolution”
I believe that Martin Luther and co had good intentions for breaking away from the Catholic Church, but however good their intentions were I don’t believe they were according to the will of God. The question to ask is, “Were they able to form the perfect church?” Didn’t people also break away from the church they formed for similar reasons? In fact, soon after they broke away, they fought physical wars among themselves. Do your research.
What they succeeded in doing was to create a very big rift in Christianity and set the precedence for splintering and further splintering of churches to the point that Christians are no longer sure whom to follow. Remember that this was not the case before the “revolt” of Martin Luther and his friends in 1517. The result of this splintering is that it has kept some people away from Christianity. It has also given the opportunity to imposters to use the name of Jesus to accrue wealth.
Offices in the Church
Another thing that is fuelling the splintering of churches in our day is the ignorance of the offices God has assigned to people. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:27-30, “Now Christ's body is yourselves, each of you with a part to play in the whole. And those whom God has appointed in the Church are, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers; after them, miraculous powers, then gifts of healing, helpful acts, guidance, various kinds of tongues. Are all of them apostles? Or all prophets? Or all teachers? Or all miracle-workers? Do all have the gifts of healing? Do all of them speak in tongues and all interpret them?”
Paul has made it clear enough. Some people with the gifts of prophecy, preaching, teaching, miracles and healing consider themselves as apostles. Apostle is a different office altogether.
The office of apostle is reserved for the legitimate leaders of the church; those who have succeeded the twelve (12) apostles. These are responsible for guiding the church. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “All scripture is inspired by God and useful for refuting error, for guiding people's lives and teaching them to be upright.” The correction and reproof aspects, are reserved for the apostles, and not all Christians, when it comes to matters that concern the whole Church.
Paul clearly spelled out the order of authority in the Church: Apostles → Prophets → Teachers → Miracle workers → Healers → Helpers → Administrators → Speakers of tongues.
It is very important that we understand and recognize this “chain of command” because there is a reason why God established it. We read in 1 Timothy 4:14, “You have in you a spiritual gift which was given to you when the prophets spoke and the body of elders laid their hands on you; do not neglect it.” Note in this passage that the prophets did not speak and also lay their hands. It was rather the elders (the people appointed by the apostles to act on their behalf) who laid their hands. We again read in Acts 8:3-17 that after Philip had baptized the Samaritans, Peter and John were sent to confirm them (that is, to pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit). The above passages of scripture tell us that the early Christians respected the chain of authority.
When God creates an office and puts people in it, He also anoints them for the functions of the office. Anyone who is not anointed for a particular office but decides to usurp the functions of that office will surely mess up like many have done!
When God wanted 70 elders, he had to select them and give some of the spirit that Moses had to them, thus empowering them for the service that they were called to perform – Numbers 11:16-17. They would never have been able to perform their duties according to God’s will without that proper empowerment.
Also, the first apostles of Jesus were empowered on different occasions for different purposes. For example, they had been empowered to go out and preach, cast out demons and heal the sick (Matthew10:5-8 and Luke 10:1-12). Yet after Jesus' death they did not have the courage to face the Jewish leaders (John 20:19). They had to be empowered for that purpose on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). Also, when they were being persecuted and they needed boldness, they prayed for the anointing for that purpose (Acts 4:23-31).
The above teach us that God anoints people for different purposes. Therefore one cannot use the anointing of a prophet, a teacher, a miracle worker or a healer to function in the office of an Apostle.
Anointing/empowerment comes along with an appointment. If you are not appointed, you are not anointed!
Dear friend, if you have understood the message in this article, next time there is an issue, you will not be asking, “Show me where in the bible it says so,” instead you will ask, “Who has the authority to speak on the matter?” Similarly, when you have argument about the interpretation of a scripture passage, you will ask, “Who has been given the authority to interpret scripture for refuting error?” You will then run to that person for help.
**Unless otherwise stated, all scripture texts are taken from the New Jerusalem Bible.**