5 Smooth Stones

ministries. While the presence of an apostle may reveal things that need to be brought into order, the ministry needs to be received as an apostle in order to receive the rewards, which in this case would be to set things into order. As a team, receiving the prophet in his ministry may also reveal things which are out of order, and the apostolic ministry may be received in order to bring the order into the church. If it were more generally understood that the apostolic and prophetic ministries can bring light to what is not in order, and direction on how to bring things into order, there would be much more to what the church accomplishes when building upon the proper foundation, and less frustration with what is built by man and must be removed at a later time by the Lord. The prophet will often be called upon to identify the apostolic and, at times, even prepare the way for this ministry. In the 1990s prophets were prophesying about the apostles which the Lord was going to raise up, yet in the 2000s when there were apostles being raised up, the prophets seemed to be ignoring the apostles that had come. In fact, John the Baptist set the pa tt ern as the more senior minister, a prophet, who proclaimed the apostle to come, and yet was not intimidated when He arrived. In fact, John was not in the least intimidated by Jesus’ increasing ministry and sent his own disciples to Jesus on several occasions (Ma tt hew11:2, Luke 7:19, John1:36, 37). John seemed to be quite comfortable in seeing his word come to pass in the ascension of Jesus into ministry. Barnabas, as an elder in Christian ministry to Saul, went to him as a prophet and apostle when Saul was in training and brought him to Antioch where Saul could increase and the Kingdom could increase because of this. Something that must be understood is the di ff erence between the young or immature and the false. Often those who are younger in calling and function are mistaken for false or self-promoting, especially by those whose hearts are not pure. “To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are de fi led and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are de fi led.” Titus 1:15 You can see this type of behavior in the story of David’s calling and ascendancy to the kingship in Israel. When David was young and a tt empted to step out of his previous vocation as shepherd, his motives were disputed by those who were in a position to assist and advise him. 97 “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30