The Problem of The Church: Churches Are Not Doing What Jesus Had Been Doing

Good morning everyone. We are going to talk about 101 Course Lesson 8: Building a glorious church is our destiny.

In the past few years, I have been wondering why churches have lost the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. One thing I noticed is that the churches are not doing what Jesus had been doing, those things that He did at the time when He was ministering to people for three and half years before He was crucified on the cross. A lot of people are not doing what Jesus Christ did during that time. Instead, they did a lot of things that our Lord Jesus Christ had never done. This poses a problem: Are we able to see what our Lord Jesus had been doing? Especially when I see people suffering from long-term diseases and various miseries happening in their lives. So, I was wondering the reason why there are huge differences between what churches have been doing and what Jesus Christ had done.

I started to understand what is the definition of a church. Building a glorious church is our destiny, I am trying to explain the differences between all kinds of churches. In the past lessons, we have been talking about everyone wants to live well. If you want to live well, then you need to know how. Living our lives, although our life is a brief span measuring some seventy or eighty years in all, the problems in our lives are very spiritual. If you are in the age of 30s, 40s or 50s, you may have experienced some spiritual things. The spiritual realm determines what kind of life we are going to live. This is the theory of Doctrine of Destiny or Ming Ding.

I thought about this and went through the process of building a church. During that time, the church only had good food, but had no power and no presence of God. After that, the church became a prayer church and still had a lot of internal struggles. Later on, we decided to climb up the mountain of the Lord and enter the Temple of Jacob's God. We followed the guidance from the book “The Final Quest” written by the prophet Rick Joyner. The church had gone through the transition and we understood that the churches are supposed to do what our Lord Jesus Christ had been doing and the churches will have exactly the same power of God.

Building a Glorious and Powerful Church is God’s plan

We followed the guidance from the book "The Final Quest" written by Rick Joyner to climb up the mountain of the Lord. In the initial phase, we were only doing it by faith and we believed we were fighting against the devils, but we have been losing our spiritual battles. That's why we turned around and started to climb up the mountain of the Lord and understand the biblical truths. At that time, we had no idea what would happen from one level of truth to another level. But now, I can tell you what has been happening. After we reached certain levels, we started to understand that the Temple of God is on the top of the mountain. The Temple of God is signifying the churches. That's why our destiny and our ultimate goal is to build a glorious church!

After climbing up the mountain of the Lord, some people came up with questions: "What is this? Is this useful? So what?" This is very important to us. Whether it is in the West or the East, there are all kinds of spiritual stories in the world. China as an example, we have "Journey to the West", a monk and his three disciples travelled thousands of kilometres to the west for Buddhist scriptures. Some people in the West of world may not know about this, but some Western stories are also talking about certain spiritual elements. For example, magic weapons. Even if you are nobody, the moment you are holding a magic weapon, you are carrying a significant amount of power.

In the Journey to the West, Sun Wukong was transformed from a monster to a bodyguard of Tang Sanzang and escorted the monk to the west for Buddhist scriptures. Whenever the three disciples fought with the devils, the devils had magic weapons on their hands. No matter how powerful you are, you cannot fight against magic weapons. You need another magic weapon to defeat the magic weapon of the enemy. We need to become an overcomer to fight with the devils. When we are facing a devil, who carried a magic weapon, I realized we did not have a magic weapon on our hands. After many years of building the church, I started to understand that the church is the magic weapon of God given to us. That's why to build a church according to the truth of God, we need to lead the church to climb up the mountain of the Lord and eventually the church will become a very powerful church. This kind of church will carry the power of a magic weapon. This is God's plan.

The Church is The Magic Weapon of God

Do you want to defeat the most powerful devil who carried a magic weapon? We need a magic weapon from our God and that is the church. Let's devote all our energy and make it our destiny in life. We came to this world to build a glorious church. Our destiny is to live and die for this glorious church because this glorious church is going to determine a lot of factors.

If you read the definition of the church which is in the book of Matthew Chapter 16:

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16: 18-19)

This rock can be mountain-sized. The key to the kingdom of heaven means we can gain access to all magic weapons in the heavenly realms. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven, which means the church is the magic weapon! After years of struggling to build a church, there was no glory of God within the church. Why? Because we were fighting with the devils at the same level. The level of truth was so low, just like the sea level.

Someone has developed a new word in Chinese and I tried to look for an English translation. When you are fighting with the enemy in the same dimension, or, on the same level, you can punch the devil, but the devil can fight back as well. After a while, you will get "panda eyes" on your face. It would be a neck-and-neck competition, which means you may win or lose. But the moment you climb up the mountain of the Lord, you will gain access to the key to heaven. You will start to get the magic weapon and get to know the nuclear bomb and the missile; you can launch the bombs or missiles before the enemy can reach you. You are fighting against the devils on a different level!

Then I started to read the book of Ephesians. This is a wonderful book. If you want to know about building a glorious church, you should read it.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength, he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (Ephesians 1: 18-23)

You see, God has called us to build the glorious church which is the magic weapon of God to fight against the devil. Through the church, the incomparably great power of God will be demonstrated! Oh, that is wonderful. You know those verses attracted me to have a hope to build a glorious church. And after that, I founded this doctrine of destiny or the doctrine of Ming Ding. The doctrine of Ming Ding is talking about the glorious church. That is the only most important thing in my life.

Let me share with you my experiences. Through the time and process of building the glorious church, I discovered one thing: the power of Almighty God had increased in me gradually, day by day. I know that one day I would be able to do what Jesus Christ had been doing, killing the devil in split seconds or milliseconds. I had been thinking about Jesus defeating the devil in split seconds and it was amazingly easy. I was struggling to move into how Jesus defeated the devil in milliseconds.

Years ago, when I first started to cast out demons, it took me a couple of months. Slowly it became a couple of weeks, then to a couple of days. Now, I am able to cast out the demons within hours. In the near future, I believed I can cast out the demons within seconds. What is the problem? The problem explains why the church has no power when fighting with the devil. I know they have a good motivation and their motive is good. They are going through the same process during my old days when I was building a church to serve God by ministering and blessing people. There are no doubts and questions asked about that.

The Role of The Church in God's Plan

The problem is that without climbing up the Mountain of Glorious Church, the power of the magic weapon will not be demonstrated. Can you see that is exactly the problem? The doctrine of Ming Ding or doctrine of destiny is trying to explain the purpose of climbing up the mountain: It is not about reaching the peak to see the beautiful scenery. It is not about taking a few nice pictures to share with your circle of friends on the moments on WeChat or Facebook telling them how breathtaking these sceneries are. It is not about the scenery or about feelings. It is all about the glory and the magic weapon to gain access into the spiritual realm.

What is God’s intention? Let me share it with you. If you refer to the bible Ephesians Chapter 3 verses 9 to 10 you will understand:

To make it plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 3:9-10 NIV)

God wants to make it plain and now make it known to everyone. You and I should know that God’s intention was through the church and not through individual salvation. The manifold wisdom of God shall be made known to the ruler and authority in the heavenly realm. Are you with me?

Building A Glorious Church Is Our Destiny

The doctrine of destiny started with experimenting umpteen times and trying extremely hard to build a church according to the teachings of Jesus Christ and Apostle Paul. After that, we started to know the manifold wisdom of God shall be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm. In the heavenly realm, we are facing great demons, who are those fallen angels, the most powerful angels, and we are going to put them under our feet. They are so powerful, but we are going to put them under our feet. Do you know why?

Looking at Ephesians chapter 3 verses 11 to 12:

... according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. (Ephesians 3:11-12)

That was exactly what God did and God’s desire is wanting us to be like Jesus. Many of us who read Ephesians including many pastors who had read this chapter, what do we need to do? When I spoke to many people, they said: "No, no, no, no, no. Who are you? Do you want to do what Jesus did? Who are you? Are you looking at yourself in the mirror? Oh my God, how boastful can you be, man?" They do not believe it but I believe what the bible had recorded.

Let me share this idea in terms of technology, or in terms of industry. The version of the doctrine we found in the bible was given the name of the doctrine of destiny. In Chinese, we called the doctrine of Ming Ding. This is the most advanced doctrine I have ever known. I put a constraint within the context in which I had known. I might only have limited knowledge about the church but within my reach, I know this is the most advanced one.

It is just like the competition in the chip industry with the CPU on the 8-cores, 16 threads or 16-cores, 32 threads or 32-cores, 64 threads, you can go to the internet and benchmark the process, then you can see which is the most advanced technology. If your computer is not working well, you will buy a good processor or a good CPU and run the benchmark test after installation. Then you will see the test results like "Your computer defeated 98% of the computers in this country". That is immensely powerful. That is very advanced.

Many people are benchmarking their computers. But now we are benchmarking the doctrine. It is not we are looking down on our forefathers who had built up the path. We are not looking down on them but we are stepping on their shoulders to move forward and run for another mile. Why am I saying that? It is for us to climb up the mountain to the next level of the truth of building a church. What is it for? It is for the magic weapon so that the wisdom of God will be made known. The power of God and the wisdom of God is made known through the church, which is the body of Christ.

The body of Christ cannot have the head parted or isolated from the body and that would be considered a dead body. For example, my arm is on the shoulder and I can make my arm move about by listening to the instruction of my brain. If you have no control of your brain and someone gave you instructions to carry the microphone, lift up your hand, put it down again, praise The Lord, clapped your hands and you followed exactly what you were told. Your brain was not the part of your body to be put on the table, is this the body of Christ? No, it is a dead body. This is why there is no power in the church. That's why we started to build the body of Christ in the temple of God. I have a dream that eventually, we will move forward with all our strengths, with all our souls, with all our minds, and all our energy. We will move forward to build a temple, collaborating with our Almighty God, and build the body of Christ till we see God’s glory, power, as well as authority, fill up the church.

Look at what the bible said in Ephesians Chapter 1:

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (Ephesians 1:18-23 NIV)

God will put everything under the feet of Jesus Christ. We are the body of Jesus Christ and we are the feet of Jesus Christ. Do not bother if the feet are smelly or not. That is a different thing. But I am willing to be the feet of Jesus Christ. I am willing to be the hand of Jesus Christ. I am willing to be some of the organs within the body of Jesus Christ! But one thing for sure: I am above the devil! “Far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Do you want to have that? Do you want to gain access to the magic power? Do you want to gain access to the magic weapon? Oh yes, if you are young, I really envy you. If you are a teenager, in your twenties or in your thirties and you heard of the doctrine of destiny, the doctrine of Ming Ding and you know this is about the magic power, then you start to devote yourself to gaining access to the power, and authority of our Almighty God to rule over all the beings. How wonderful can that be?

We are the body of Jesus Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our head and God had put everything under the feet of Jesus Christ so we are in one. Do you think there is full of hope? There is full of hope! After fighting for so many years, being defeated by the devil, and after going through so much sweat and tears. Being defeated by the devil is not a pleasant thing at all as they defecated on my shoulders and my head. It was so smelly. They vomited on my body and did all kinds of dirty things on me. The reason they did this to me all because of one reason: I am a Christian but I had no glorious Church. That was one of the saddest things.

Why did the church lose the glory of God? Because the church was not built according to the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ was revealed over the years. If you read the book of Matthew, from the book of Matthew all the way to the Book of Revelation, you will see the desire of God is to build a glorious church. I am so fortunate that I am called by God. I am going to lay my life for God to build his glorious church. I am going to gain access to this magic weapon and going to defeat the most powerful enemy in the world which is the fallen angel, who was created to be the most beautiful angel but later on became the ugliest angel. But he still carried the kind of power.

Fighting Against the Devil From A Higher Dimension

You know, no matter how powerful the devil is, it is so simple for God to defeat the devil. But the problem is: God's plan is to make human beings, make you and I, to defeat the most powerful angel, the most powerful devil. That's what salvation is all about! And what is the approach? The approach is to build the Church of Christ!

Are you with me? Have I made it clear? In the initial stage of climbing up the mountain, we were defeated so badly. It is true that this road is so challenging. But we keep on climbing up. After going through this challenging initial stage, there will definitely be a final stage where we could defeat the devil! You know, there is this term called "Fighting in a different dimension", for example, the three-dimensional animal fighting against a two-dimensional animal. They are fighting in two different dimensions! Are you with me? It's so easy to defeat the enemy. So as we enter the Temple of God and we build a glorious church, we will be able to fight against the fallen Angel, the devil, in a different dimension!

Come on, my brother and sisters! Did you hear that? Do you want to win the battle? Do you want to gain access to the power of God? God planned it in this way so that you and I can defeat the most powerful enemy God has ever created. God created that for us and the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ will be made known through us. Because you and I start to build this body of Christ, build a glorious church, then we will be able to defeat the devil, the most powerful enemy, by this magic weapon! And we are fighting against the devil in a totally different dimension.

In Apostle Paul's description, he had been caught up to the third heaven! I don't know how many levels are there in heaven, but some people say that the devil actually lives in the second heaven. There are many different layers of heaven, or many different levels or dimensions. So the fighting will become so easy if we fight in the third dimension of heaven against the devil in the second dimension of heaven! That's why you and I got to look forward to the day when we can kill the demon within a split second. Oh, how wonderful life is going to be at that time! How wonderful it is!

The Church Is One of The Most Important Concepts

Although I'm talking like this, we are still on the journey. I want to encourage all of you to carry the same hope and to march forward! Sometimes you and I can be tired. But we got to get away from this elementary teaching of Jesus Christ, go into the fullness of Jesus Christ, and put the enemies all under our feet! Who do you think put the enemies under our feet? Do you think it's God? No! God has made us put the devil down! So you and I are working with God through the church.

That's why the church is one of the most important concepts in God's plan! Not the family. Not your family or my family. Not someone else's family. If you read Bible carefully you would know that. I studied the Bible carefully from the beginning to the end, and from the end back to the beginning, end to the beginning, beginning to the end again, but I couldn't discover this kind of theory. Nowadays there is a very popular theory that if you have no family, what got church? What is that? What is that? They are not talking about your family or my family. They're talking about the family of God, talking about the Temple of God! So Jesus Christ was teaching us: you got to lay down your wife, lay down your family, your brothers and sisters, your children, your mother and father, your house, and your everything to follow Jesus Christ. Do you want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? If you want to follow Jesus Christ, you got to follow in this way according to the teaching of Jesus Christ.

But now a lot of people abandoned this teaching. They replaced this teaching with something else which I had never found in the Bible. So now you and I got to really go back to study the Bible. The truth that was covered in the Book of Ephesians. I would hope that the eyes of all of us are enlightened and the eyes of our hearts are enlightened so that we may know the hope to which God called us, the richness of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.

But you can hardly see this happening in popular churches, even though they have thousands or millions of members, or they have a big building, or they have a good stage, piano, music, lighting, singers, and good praise and worship. Is that church? No. The church doesn't need that. For all the churches in the Bible, it is never mentioned that they need this kind of element. They do not need this kind of stage. They do not need this kind of lighting effect. What they need is only the presence of Almighty God and to build the church according to the truth of God. And then we can speak with confidence. We can speak by faith. Come on! This is the incomparable great power for us who believe! Demons will be cast out. The devil, we will put under our feet!

Are you going to look forward to the day? Let's put our hands together. We will hand hold each other and we will march forward to those days. And eventually, we will the spiritual battle and put the devil under our feet.

You will surely see the day of prosperity. We are using the word "Prosperity". Someone would challenge me: "Are you preaching a prosperity gospel?" No. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ and by nature, it does have the element of prosperity. Because the moment you win over the devil, the moment you overcome your own carnal nature, the moment you defeat the devil, you will be blessed! Devil has no more power to steal our blessing, has no more gut to come over to steal the blessing from our God! They cannot steal the financial blessing or the health blessing! You and I got to know that we are supposed to live this kind of life. That will be wonderful!

Conclusion: Through The Church, The Wisdom of God Will Be Made Known

So the past several lessons have paved the way: we are living in the spiritual world. The spiritual world will determine how we are going to live in this life. Are you with me? But if you want to defeat the enemy in the spiritual realm, you will need a magic weapon. And that magic weapon is the church, which is described in the Book of Ephesians and the Book of Galatians. You can read Apostle Paul's letters. Paul's letters were all talking about the power of God because the power of God will be made known through his churches.

That's how it works! Oh, I'm part of God's plan! You and I are part of the plan of God! How wonderful it is! You know, you and I are called by our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why we really got to take pride in it! We got to take pride in it. Now you and I are called into God's plan. And you and I are called to take this glorious inheritance. You and I are called to defeat the most powerful devil in the world in the spiritual realm. Wow, this is really wonderful!

Do you still look down on this on this destiny? Are you willing to live for it? Are you decide to die for it? If you and I really understand how glorious the inheritance is, you will put all your strength into this destiny. It's not like discovering some oil fields or a mine of gold, right? It's not like discovering the treasure of Ali Baba. No, the treasure is not in the cave, but in the church! And God will give you all the keys of heaven and you can open the door behind which there are great magic weapons all over the place. These are spiritual weapons. You can take up these weapons and then you will be able to do what Jesus Christ has been doing. Jesus Christ has demonstrated the power of these magic weapons. And now you and I just need to follow the instructions according to Paul's letters. Then you and I will be doing exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ had been doing. What did Jesus say in the Bible? He said that we are going to do greater things than what he did. We are able to do greater things than Jesus Christ. Wow, how wonderful can that be! What kind of promise can that be!

So you know what Paul says:

In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. (Ephesians 3:4-5)

And I would repeat this sentence. I would say that in reading or listening to all my preaching, you will understand my insight into the mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was made known to this generation. Wonderful, it's so wonderful!

Through the church. The wisdom of God will be made known. The power of God will be made known. Being part of it. Being part of it! How wonderful can that be! In the past years, I was attending local churches. To be honest, I'm so grateful for what God had done through me, what God had revealed to me, and what I have demonstrated to our people. I would say: Oh, all of us to embrace this vision, all of us so embrace this mission! Until the day, "Mission completed". Then you and I will take what God has prepared: the glorious crown as the king. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the king of kings and you and I are going to be the kings. Wonderful, so wonderful!

Can you connect up from Lesson 1 all the way to Lesson 8? Are you prepared to be part of the plan of Almighty God? The blueprint has already been laid before us. We just need to follow the instructions and build the glorious Church. Then we will see all kinds of problems caused by the spiritual realm will be addressed by carrying up the destiny. We really want to keep praying to our God.

I will end over here and I hope you hear my explanation clearly because I quoted many verses from the New Testament. If you connect up from the Book of Matthew all the way to Revelation, you will know God's intention is on the body of Christ which is the church. So we climb up the mountain, no matter how tough the journey is. And the moment we reach the peak, reach the top, we will see the Temple of God full of glory. Let's look forward to the day. You and I got to pull ourselves together again and walk toward the peak for one more mile.

May the Lord bless you. I see you next week.