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The
following excerpt was transcribed from a message preached by Bishop
Norman L. Wagner at the Indiana State Young People’s Convention,
held at Christ Church Apostolic, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, on
Friday, August 11, 2000. Special thanks to Sister V. Ellis for transcribing
this dynamic sermon in its entirety. It is reprinted here from the
Christian Outlook (Permission for Reprint Pending).
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The
Armorbearer
One of the most misunderstood positions
in the church is (that of ) the armor bearer. According to the Scriptures,
the armorbearers who we can identify - I’ll just speak about three
of them: unto Moses, Joshua was his armorbearer; unto Elijah, Elisha
was his armorbearer; and unto Saul, David was his armorbearer.
Now a study of the Scriptures will point out the following to you:
An armorbearer’s responsibility was to go into war with his master
the king. Secondly, his responsibility was to carry all of the armor
that was used by the king. He carried the shield, he carried the buckler,
he carried the spear, and he carried the sword. And so the armorbearer
had to carry the armor of the king. You see, armorbearing is not grabbing
the pastor’s briefcase or the pastor’s wife’s purse. You have to grab
what’s in their heart. To be an armorbearer is not the externals.
You have to tap into the heart of a person. The armorbearer had to
stand with the king on the front line of the battle. Wherever the
battle went, the armorbearer was there and he went ahead of the king.
He would say: before you kill the king, you’ve got to kill me. An
armorbearer has got to go before you because he is the transitional
person. He is the person who understands the past and the person who
sees the future. And he stands between the past and the future. He
is not quite in the past and not quite in the future, so he has to
take licks. An armorbearer is always the person in the middle. I was
an armorbearer to Bishop Tyson, and I had people in the church, who
I pastor now, call me flunky and every other kind of name you can
image. It never bothered me, because you can try to call me Belteshazzar,
I know my name is Daniel. Call me whatever you want to. Call me Esther,
my name is Hadassah. You can call me a holy roller, but I know who
I am. And so David became probably the most famous armorbearer in
the Bible. He had to stand with Saul. Lastly, the armorbearer had
to take an oath that he would never, under any circumstances, kill
the king. He had to take an oath that I will die before I allow somebody
to kill you. Do you remember when David was being pursued by Saul,
and David came up on Saul after Saul had done him dirty? David came
up on Saul and grabbed his sword and got ready to slay Saul, but instead
he just cut the skirt of his garment. He heard the Lord say, “Touch
not my anointed and do my prophets no harm.” When God anoints you,
you can be sinful, but anointed. You can be backslidden, but anointed.
You can be headed for hell, but anointed. You see, anointing is the
saturation of God. The favor that gets on you. A dead man like Elijah,
when he died, though his spirit had gone back to God, he had lived
in the anointing so long that when they tossed a dead man on his bones,
the dead man came back to life. Not because of a prayer, but the anointing.
The anointing is not when we rev up and get to grabbing our ear: No!
Anointing is the saturation of God’s divine favor all over your life,
and God doesn’t take it back. If He anointed you once, you’re anointed.
You might be lost, but anointed. Backslidden, but anointed. Headed
for hell, but anointed. I preached a message one time “Awful But Anointed.”
You can be awful and still anointed. That’s what fools many preachers.
They think they’re getting by when they’re messing with folk in the
church up under the covers. Not only preachers, people in the church.
If you got to have something, don’t mess with folks in the church.
There’s something out on the street here. This is your brother and
sister. Be careful; don’t commit spiritual incest right in the church.
God had called David to be the armorbearer. And the reason David could
not kill Saul, every armorbearer had to take an oath that I will die
before you die. When Saul and Jonathan were in a battle, Saul had
to fall on his own sword because as an armorbearer, he had taken an
oath that I will have to die before you die. I can’t kill you. Where
are the armorbearers today? Even though someone has come short of
the glory of God you will say I’m here to save you and get your soul
up out of this mess. You see, to be an armorbearer, you cannot be
a judge. You are an armorbearer. You will come and save somebody regardless
of the mess they got in. Let the judge do his work and let the sentence
be passed, but for me and my work, I’m going to call on the name of
the Lord. And so, here comes David. He serves as a man of transition.
He serves as a man of the operation of God. He serves as a man between
two testaments and he is carrying the things of God. David learned
how to be a king by being the armorbearer. The armorbearer is actually
a trustee of destiny - destiny that is carried by the armorbearer.
Now what does he carry? The armorbearer has to carry the Word of God.
The armorbearer has to carry the law of God. The armorbearer must
carry the knowledge of the oneness of God. We got a lot of preachers,
but few armorbearers. We’ve got a lot of singers, but few armorbearers.
We got a lot of people trying to tell us what to do, but we only have
a few armorbearers. I want everybody to get in your mind that I am
an armorbearer, and I am the person that God wants to use in this
day and this hour. David said: I am an armorbearer. l am one that
has been called of the Lord to carry His Word. I am a Benjamite and
when I came here I became friends with your son Jonathan. He would
rev up, and he would throw a rock 100 miles per hour. But the king
said that’s old fashion. That’s the way we used to do it. But now
we have new weaponry. We have swords. But David said I’m going to
do what you taught me from the Benjamities. I’m going to use what
I saw all the folks doing in the backyard of the palace when I came
here. I saw them take a stone and wrap it in a sling and throw it
a 100 miles an hour. And he took the slingshot and defeated Goliath.
You see what he did? He went back and did what was assigned for them
for the time. You got to go back. You got to go back to
studying like the old fathers. You’re supposed to be the premier
Apostolic. Otherwise, under your watch there is going to be a generation
of nothing but shouters, rollers and midnight jam sessions. You got
to go to another level. Choirs, you’ve got to go. Kirk is fine for
Kirk and that nation he’s with – but we’re talking about Apostolic
worship. You’ve got to shift your worship to another level. You cannot
just sing everything they’re singing. But somebody has got to sing
about Jesus. And so, he defeated him the Benjamite way. King Saul
would have done the same thing if he had remembered his power. God
empowered him to use a sling, but he was trying to use the world’s
weapon and it would not work. Do you hear what I’m saying? |
Now, they say that I’m one of the most worshipping Presiding Bishops.
Now that’s not just because I like to worship, I know where my power
comes from. If I can’t worship, I can’t preach. If I can’t worship,
I can’t sing. If I can’t worship, I won’t get wisdom. David was the
armorbearer, and God told David to bring the Ark home. David went
out and then messed up like Saul. Everybody else was using an 18-wheeler
– the newest cart in town. So David ordered a Mercedes Benz 18-wheeler
to transport God. And the Bible tells us that the doors on the truck
began toup. Now it wasn’t by accident; God was saying let me
out of here, I don’t like where I am, and God broke through the cart.
When God started coming down out of the cart, Uziah touched the cart,
and God killed him. Now why did God kill him? Because Uziah was not
an armorbearer. You have to be authorized to carry this Gospel. You
have to be authorized to lay your hands on the sick and they recover.
You must be authorized to sing the songs of Jesus in the choir. Uziah
was not authorized. David got angry: God I’m trying to do what you
told me. Why did you kill the man? And God said you’re doing it the
wrong way. He said how do I do it? He said go back and get the prophets
of age and ask them how they use to do it. How did you carry God?
How did you get this far? How were you blessed? And the priest told
him the way we used to do it there was a command of God and He said
get the priest and bear the Ark on their shoulders. And so, they got
the priest. They got one on this side and one on the same side and
another on this side and another on that, and the Bible said one was
walking in front. The one who was walking in front, the Bible said,
was a worshipper. You got to get some worshippers to lead this. And
so David got it like God said, and God was pleased. What was God commanding
David to do? Put Apostolic order back in the house. He was telling
him to move my presence. You’ve got to move my government. The Ark
does not just represent the presence of God, it represents government.
Don’t you remember: and the government shall be upon His shoulders.
That’s how you move it. You’ve got to move God back in place. Who
shall bear the Ark? He said the first man shall be the Apostle or
the Apostolic. The second man shall be the prophet. Third, shall be
the evangelist. Fourth, shall be the pastor. And the fifth, shall
be the teacher. What you have to do as an armorbearer is to move the
presence of God; you have to get Apostolic order in place and you
have to have the fivefold ministry. David how did you slay Goliath?
He said, I went and I picked up five smooth stones. l picked up Apostle.
I picked up the prophet. I picked up the evangelist. I picked up the
pastor, and the teacher. That’s the way they came down. But how many
did you need for it to come down? Just one stone. And which one? The
first one, the Apostle. In order to put the kingdom of this world
back in order, the Apostolic church must move an armorbearer. I’ve
been sent to the kingdom for such a time as this to make sure that
God has called me in the needed hour. Only the armorbearer can touch
the things of God. David became the king and trouble happened. Now,
how did it happen? Saul was put out of the kingdom because Saul began
to do another man’s job. The people said we want you to be like other
kings. Well, all the other kings used the sword. The Bible said in
Israel there were no swords. In Israel they never used swords. In
Benjamin there were no swords. They had trampings and they had been
victorious in other means. But the Philistines they made swords, and
so the new creatures wanted to be like the kings of the Philistines.
And so the Bible said Saul and his son Jonathan went into the land
of the Philistines and said we’re going to get a sword so we can be
like other people. But something happened on the mountain. There was
a man by the name of Goliath that was challenging the armies of the
living God, and Saul the king could not defeat him. Jonathan his son
could not defeat him. What did Goliath have? He had a sword. What
did Saul have? He had a sword. What did Jonathan have? He had a sword.
But they were out of their time and out of their class. God didn’t
plan that for them, so when David came up to slay Goliath, Saul said
bring him here. He said if you’re going to do this you’re going to
have to dress in my suit, and here I’m going to give you my shield
and my sword. You see this sword, David? It was made in Philistine.
This sword is just like their sword, and so David said I can’t wear
it. It hasn’t been proven in the Apostolic church. This thing hasn’t
been proven. There are some things other churches are doing for church
growth, but it hasn’t been proven in an Apostolic church. You see,
getting people is not growing the church. You can get people, and
have a circus and not a church. If you have church, you have power.
If you got a church, the sick will be healed. If you have a church,
the dead will be raised. If you have a church, men and women will
be born again of the water and the spirit. If you have an Apostolic
church, marriages will come back together. David said I cannot use
what you have given me. I have not tried it. They said, David you’ve
got to try it. Now look, if it didn’t work for you in your generation,
why in the world do you want to saddle me with it in the new generation?
And so David, they said, what are you going to do? He said I’m going
to do what I learned when I came to the Benjamites. Is there anybody
here that will tell God I’ll move? Is there anybody here that will
tell God, "I’m ready"? It is God that is about to make a
last move. In this last move, your sons and your daughters will prophecy.
In this last move they shall restore the kingdom. In this last move
they shall make restitution. In this last move they will lay their
hands on the sick and they shall recover. If you’re ready today, the
Lord will make you an armorbearer to carry the Ark of God. But you’ve
got to be in governmental compliance. Be holy to be in compliance.
Be sanctified to be in compliance. You must be a worshipper to be
in compliance. You must pray to be in compliance. There is a power
that is in you that God wants resurrected. Wake up and serve your
generation. Wake up and carry God on your job. Wake up and bring God
into the neighborhood. Wake up and have a life for God. You are an
anointed armorbearer. You are to stand through thick and thin. You
are to carry the sword or the Word. You are to carry the shield of
faith. You are to say, " I believe God. I believe God." You’re going
to operate in that gift today. Say like Micah, throw your hands up
and say, "truly I am full of power". Say it until it gets in your
spirit. Micah didn’t wait on somebody else to tell him. Now lay
your hands on each other and command it to happen. Call the name Jesus
for it to work. Command it to happen. |
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Bishop
Norman Wagner, Presiding Prelate
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