UNEDUCATED JOHN VS EDUCATED JUDAS (BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO WOULD READ THIS TO THE VERY END)

UNEDUCATED JOHN -VS- EDUCATED JUDAS
Some years back, when I was a member of a Deeper Life Bible Church in Nigeria, I know of a brother pastoring a campus fellowship, and I heard he was doing well, and then later he was removed from pastoring the fellowship, why? I heard because he was not a university graduate, and he was replaced with a “university” graduate pastor. And I began to see the demoted pastor, who was not given any other church to pastor, coming to our district church to fellowship with us, and seating at the back. Not long after, I heard the “university” graduate pastor could not successfully pastor the school fellowship, so they had to call the demoted no-B.Sc. pastor to come and help the “university” pastor as assistant pastor of the school fellowship.

This is the generation where high education is now one of the requirements for working for God at a level. No wonder I saw many of the pastors there going back to school as part-time students, not for the purpose of getting promotion in their businesses or offices, but for them to qualify to become senior pastor, because there was a limit you could reach in working for God in the church if you are not a university graduate, in fact, it wasn’t possible for anyone to become a state overseer if the person was not a university graduate. And in this same type of Christianity we are praying for revival, which type of revival, is it academic or sarcastic revival or revival of the Holy Spirit?

Do you know why we are not experiencing the move of God in the church today as before, why lots of funny things are happening, why powers of darkness are prevailing of many Christians, why pastors cannot rescue their members from darkness? It is simply because the called are not the ordained and the ordained are not the called, as a result of misappropriate of priorities, depending on human wisdom instead of God’s power, ordaining people into ministerial position by physical outward look such as academic outlook of higher education, able to speak good English, and physical outward look of financial capacity, having a good car, able to fund the church, instead of ordaining those who are genuinely called by God. How can God back you in what He doesn’t call you into?

Jesus Christ ordained Peter as the “General Overseer or Senior Pastor” of the early church, and you know who was his deputy? It was John. But both Peter and John were stark illiterates, you know people that you don’t need to spend too much time speaking with before you discover that they are illiterates and unlearned? Those were Peter and John. Let’s read it in the Bible: Acts 4:13, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.”

Peter and John were not only uneducated but also unlearned, meaning they were not civilized, and Jesus Christ handed over the leadership of the church, not only in a village but worldwide, unto them. That would be impossible in this civilized type of our Christianity today where pastor are reading Bible from ipad, that is the reason our civilized Christianity cannot contain the power of God as of old.

What A Funny Generation We Are!
We are in generation where people prefer attractive packaging to effective products
We are in a generation where people prefer quantity to quality
We are in a generation where people prefer popularity to productivity
We are in a generation of Christianity where people prefer speaking in tongue to speaking the truth
We are in a generation of Christians where people prefer educated Judas Iscariot to uneducated John.
We are in a sarcastic funny generation of Christianity

Depending on God’s Power Not Human Capacity
In the days of John Wesley, lay preachers with limited education would sometimes conduct the church service. One man used Luke 19:21 as his text, “Lord, I feared thee, because thou art an austere man.” KJV. Not knowing the word austere, he thought the text spoke of “an oyster man.” He explained how a diver must grope in dark, freezing water to retrieve oysters, in his attempt; he cuts his hands on the sharp edges of the shells. After he obtains oyster, he rises to the surface, clutching it “in his torn and bleeding hands.” The preacher added, “Christ descended from the glory of heaven into…..sinful human society in order to retrieve humans and bring them back up with Him to the glory of heaven. His torn and bleeding hands are a sign of the value He has placed on the object of His quest.”

Afterward, 12 men received Christ. Later that night someone came to Wesley to complain about unschooled preachers who were too ignorant even to know the meaning of the texts they were preaching on. The Oxford-educated Wesley simply said, “Never mind, the Lord gets a dozen oysters tonight.”

If we want to experience the move of God and His glory in our lives or in our ministries, we must totally depend on God for His will, not our ways, we must let God use our inadequacies and that of others for His glory. God does not choose by physical capacity or outward look, but by His own divine calling. We cannot experience revival in our lives, families, ministries, career, or business until we revert back to the standard of God and His wisdom.

1 Corinthians 1:26, 27, “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty”