The Vision by Rick Joyner
Episode 43
The Enemy of the Gospel
"I understand how you feel," remarked another man.
I recognized him as someone I considered one of the greatest Christian leaders of all time. "Near the end of his life, Paul the apostle said he was the least of the saints. Then, just before his death, he even called himself 'the greatest of sinners.' If he hadn't learned that lesson during his life on earth, he, too, would have been in jeopardy of becoming one of the least of the saints in heaven. Because he learned it on earth, he is now one of those closest to the Lord, and will be one of the highest in rank for all of eternity."
Seeing this man in the company of " the foolish virgins" was the greatest surprise I had yet. "I cannot believe that you, too, are one of the foolish who slept away their lives o1 earth. Why are you here?"
"I am here because I made one of the gravest mistakes you can make as one entrusted with the glorious gospel of our Savior," he answered. "Just as the apostle Paul progressed from not considering himself inferior to the greatest apostles, to being the greatest of sinners, I took the opposite course. I started out knowing that I had been one of the greatest of sinners who had found grace, but ended up thinking I was one of the greatest apostles. It was because of my great pride, not insecurity like our friend here, that I began to attack everyone who did not see everything just the way I did.
"I stripped those who followed me of their own callings and even their personalities, pressuring them to all become just like me. No one around me could be himself. No one dared to question me, because they knew I would crush them into powder. I thought that by making others smaller I made myself greater. I thought that I was supposed to be the Holy Spirit to everyone.
"From the outside my ministry looked like a smooth running machine where everyone was in unity and there was perfect order-but it was the order of a concentration camp.
I took the Lord's children and made them automatons. I molded them into my own image instead of His. In the end I was not even serving the Lord, but rather the idol I had built to myself. By the end of my life I was actually an enemy of the true gospel, at least in practice, even if my teachings and writings seemed impeccably biblical."
Coming from this person, such statements astounded me. I began to wonder if every meeting I had here was meant to give me a greater shock than the previous one.
"If it is true that you became an enemy of the gospel, how is it that you are still here?" I questioned.
"By the grace of God, I did trust in the cross for my own salvation. However, I actually kept other men from it, leading them to myself rather than to the Lord. Even so, the blessed Savior remains faithful to us even when we are unfaithful. It was also by His grace that the Lord took me from the earth sooner than He would have, just so those who were under me could find Him and come to know Him.'