After our 20 minute break, R.T. Kendall began the second session of the Saturday morning meetings. At this point, R.T. continued with the same theme of 1 Samuel 16:1
but turned the focus to the concept of ‘today’s man of God’ using Samuel as his example.
It was at this time that R.T. Kendall began to discuss how it is a very painful and uneasy process to being today’s man of God because a stigma is attached to them that is very hard to conquer. R.T. then mentions how the early Pentecostal pastors used to yell and scream their sermons and would breathe loudly into the microphone like ‘The Lord says UUUUUUUUUUH Thou shalt not UUUUUH steal UUUUUUUUH. Kendalls explains further that what eventually happened was that the next generation of Pentecostal pastors imitated and copied the breathing sounds between phrases mistaking this as part of what comprised the anointing of God because their mentor did it. He also ststed that Baptists were guilty of this also telling a story of a famous seminary teacher who would under the influence of God begin to raise his voice. This preacher, hard of hearing in his left ear, would cover his left ear to block out secondary noises to where he would focus his right ear on hearing his voice coming out of the stage monitors. What happened was that seminary students would copy the covering of the left ear thinking that was part of the anointing from God not realizing that the seminary teacher did it to hear better. Kendall summarized up this phenomeon by saying:
When you imitate someone else, you never get their anointing. You get only their eccentric habits.
Emphasizing again that anointing comes only from God. Kendall then mentioned the that the today’s man of God must learn to destigmatize himself from the past stigmas because of our love of the nostalgia and familar (he compared this to the ‘old wineskin’). Kendall explains that the main reason we love the nostalgic and familar is because it reminds us of a postive move of God from the past and also it is a ’safe’ benchmark of something God actually did.
By learning to destigmatize himself from the past stigmas, Kendall emphaized that ‘today’s man of God’ must be willing to go outside our comfort zone and familiarity and learn to experience the current real move of God. Kendall then talked about the beginnings of the Toronto blessing and how the beginning of this move was an actual move of God before things happened from within. He also mentions that for years, his church prayed and prayed for the Holy Spirit to move in London and was baffled when the Holy Spirit first came down on Holy Trinity Brompton instead of Westminster Chapel. He said at this point, he could have sulked and missed God entirely but he went over for some services at HTB and saw some bad theology, but also saw people really moving in the Holy Spirit.
From there, Kendall details an opportunity to meet Rodney Howard-Browne while in London. He mentioned that RH-B, like Cain, practiced some really bad theology but the gift of healing and the Holy Spirit did flow out through him and his wife Adonica when they laid hands on his wife Louise for God to heal her of various medically documented respiratory ailments and healing was later confirmed by doctors. Kendall made a point of:
A man of God who is moving in the Holy Spirit will make mistakes and may have some bad theology that he promotes, but when God moves, God moves. It does not justify the bad teaching but it shows a work in process.
From there, Kendall went on to mention that Samuel was hasty and almost anointed the wrong son of Jesse numerous times. However, Samuel did listen to the Lord and waited for and David to appear from the fields. As Samuel had to learn (via 1 Samuel 16:1) to break away from something he was a part of in reference to anointing Saul as King, today’s man of God will sometimes have to learn to reject something that they were a part of previously.
Kendall then closed by leaving the congregation with numerous thoughts:
Do not take rejection personally for you will experience much rejection.
Do not ‘gloat’ when the opportunity of ‘I told you so’ has a chance to be stated.
Look out for the tomorrow man of God and prepare him and others for tomorrow.
Be prepared to feel inadequate, lonely, and delayed for your calling and anointing at hand. Appearances can be deceiving.
After Kendall’s discussion, Kendall had a ten minute question and answer session where the participants could ask Kendall to repeat certain statements, explain certain statement in detail, or clear up some misunderstandings. Then the session ended to be continued later that evening.
I have to disagree with the statement “was baffled when the Holy Spirit first came down on Holy Trinity Brompton instead of Westminster Chapel” I used to go to Westminster Chapel as a young man and revival was happening in the youth group - that is where I came to know Christ more than anywhere. Unfortunately it was quenched by the leadership of the church worrying that we were “working things up” when God was actually answering everyone’s prayers -including RT’s right under everyone’s nose. It was a wonderful time of our lives and people were being “added to the numbers” from all sorts of places. I guess its my responsibility to give my opinion here since I read the article and am probably more qualified that most (sine I was there) to make comment.
Sometimes things happen (that we have prayed for) and we don’t even notice it because we are too pre-occupied with our own ideas of how it shall happen!