You can understand exactly what's happening and show you what the scriptural pattern is. I'm going to read you three passages of scripture quickly. First one is in Acts chapter 13 and reading from verse 1. Now they were in the church that was Antioch, some prophets and some teachers.

These included Barnabas, Simeon who was known as Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. And as they made themselves available to the Lord in prayer and fasted, the Holy Spirit told them, set Barnabas and Saul apart for me for the work to which I've called them. Where they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they released them into their ministry.

On Timothy 4 verse 14 says, do not neglect the gift that is in you which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the elders of the church. Finally Titus chapter 1 reading from verse 4. To Titus my own son after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. This is why I left you in Crete that you should set in order what is lacking and ordain elders in every city just like I had commanded you today.

There's a few questions I'd like to ask and answer today. Simple questions. Firstly, what is ordination? Secondly, who carries out ordination? Thirdly, who qualifies for ordination? And finally, how is ordination carried out? What is ordination? Ordination is public recognition of a person to show that they have qualified for a ministry position.

It tells everybody present that this person has qualified. It declares that you must now recognize this person for the call that God's placed on their life. Now there always has to be a delegation downwards of authority.

Authority is never autocratic. Authority is not something you take upon yourself because you feel like it. Authority has to come from somebody above you.

Now the highest authority of course is God himself and God delegates his authority down into the leaders that he appoints the body of Christ. And those leaders in turn pass down to others the authority that is given to them. Okay.

So authority is always delegated. What is passed down is not an ability. It's an authority.

It's two Greek words that are used for power. Exousia, the power of authority and dunamis, the power of ability. So ordination is not an impartation of an ability but a delegation of an authority.

Now sometimes an impartation of an ability can take place at the same time depending on who's doing the ordination. And I'll explain that as we go. Ordination is a licensing or a giving of the right to carry out the duties of leadership.

Now that means you have been given the right to carry out leadership under the authority that is delegated down to you. That is the one who's given you the right and therefore your authority lies always under the covering of that person. Elders in a church have been delegated authority and that authority lies in the realm of the local church in which they are.

They do not have the authority to go outside of that church and exercise authority in another church because they've been delegated authority from the leader from the covering of that church and therefore they function in that context. Now I want you to realize that there's a difference between releasing somebody into a ministry office of the fivefold ministry and the ordination of leadership in a local church. Those are not the same and we mustn't confuse them.

I hear people say I was ordained to be a prophet. There's no such terminology in scripture. Ordination has nothing to do with the fivefold ministry.

You may have been appointed or set or released into a ministry office and when that happens you are released into a position of authority and power that transcends the local church. If you've been appointed to be a prophet, if God has led somebody to release you into prophetic office, you've been placed in a position of authority that is not confined to the person who appointed you. You're not confined within a local church or under any authority.

You are actually directly under the authority of the Lord and your authority and your realm of operation is not limited to any local church. You can go anywhere in the world to any church, stand in that prophetic authority because God has given it to you. Okay, now I want you to understand the difference between those two because they are not the same thing.

So you know I had this bishop that ordained me to be an apostle. You got nothing. You got nothing except a big show and actually the way the two are carried out is totally different as I'll explain to you shortly.

You see the releasing into a ministry office is never public. Well we are going to have a special ordination meeting next Sunday and we are going to place you officially as apostles. It's unscriptural.

Totally unscriptural. If you've had one of these things where you had a special ordination meeting where you were placed as a prophet or apostle throw it away because you're dependent on the person who gave it to you. When you are placed in a ministry office you've got nothing to do with the person who gave it to you.

They were simply an agent that God used. Always done privately. It's very seldom even done in the presence of many witnesses because you stand before God alone not before man and you don't need witnesses for that to be carried out.

Ordination however is something very different. Ordination is when a person is publicly recognized within a group as being leaders within the context of that group and it's always public. It's never done privately.

It has to be public because we are publicly declaring these people this person that we are ordaining we are showing you that we are putting our seal of recognition on this person. We are delegating to them what we have and we are telling you you recognize them from now on as though you recognize us in the same way because they are going to now represent us and stand in the same authority and mantle that we do. So it has to be public because we got to publicly declare this person has been placed and recognized.

Okay I hope I've clarified that because a lot of people are confused on this. Ordination in the scriptures is always in that context. Releasing or placing in ministry office is something totally different.

Okay now what happened with Paul and Barnabas was a little bit different in that this was not done publicly in the church. It was actually done amongst the elders, the leaders who were already in office. They were prophets and apostles, prophets and teachers who were already functioning.

Although they were the elders of the local church, they together as a group were praying and God said now I want you to release Paul and Barnabas and to release them to the apostolic. So they were sent off but it says who was sent off by the Lord, by the Holy Spirit. Those fivefold leaders who amongst the the presbytery of the group of elders, they were simply the agents that were releasing them.

So Paul and Barnabas went out and thereafter they were known as apostles. Okay and they never functioned now in the local church. They actually were already ordained to be leaders in the local church.

They were part of the group of elders, they were already ordained. This wasn't an ordination but they were now sent out from the local church to go into the body universal and to go and establish churches and to minister in the body of Christ. Universal, not the local church.

They eventually came back to their local church, yes, and in their local church they didn't stand as apostles in authority but actually as elders who were apostles. You see the difference? Okay, now that I've clarified that let's see who can be ordained. You can be ordained if you've proved that you're capable of a position.

How do you do that? By showing faithfulness, firstly, in serving. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, let a person consider us the representatives of Christ and managers of God's secret things. Now it is required in leaders that a person is shown through examination to be trustworthy.

You cannot lead until you've learned to submit to leadership. I don't care how qualified you are, if you've never learned to obey and submit and follow leadership, God cannot trust you and man cannot trust you to rise up into position of leadership. You cannot teach others until you've ready to learn and to be a student.

You cannot receive until you've been willing to give. I'm amazed at times to see people who want to rise up, start their own ministry and they expect everybody to pour into them and support them, but they've never actually given any real tangible support where they were. But now suddenly that they have a need, everybody's expected to meet their need because they're the leaders now.

You know, if you haven't learned to give in every way at a lower level, you can never rise up to be a leader and expect to be given to. We've got to prove ourselves faithful in the little things. We've got to be willing to be a servant first before we can be one in authority and elites.

So you need to support the work of the ministry, firstly through personal effort. Are you there to do whatever needs to get done? Are you there only to have the exalted position? Well, call on me when you need somebody to preach. We need somebody to put the chairs in place and to clean the hall for the meeting.

Well, that's not my job. I'm a leader. You know, give it to the lower downs.

See, you just disqualified yourself from being a leader because you weren't willing to serve. Through temporal support. Now, I seldom talk about money, but it costs money to run a business.

It costs money to run a ministry. People are very often quite happy to pour money into a business, but they see a ministry as something that's got to be charitable. And well, you know, you as the leader, you must support yourself and you must trust God until you have your own ministry.

And then suddenly you realize what it costs to run a ministry and you can't understand why nobody wants to give. Maybe you're just reaping what you sowed. What about that? If you're not willing to pour everything, you see, scripture says where a man's treasure is, so his heart will be.

See, what is that's valuable to you? Are you being involved in ministry just to take and get what you can? Or you're there to invest? Are you like an employee who's working for a boss just to get your pay? Would you consider yourself a shareholder in the company? And you want that company to grow and to succeed. And you're going to pour everything you can into it, invest everything you can into it to make it grow. Yeah, people are quite happy to do that if it's their company.

People are quite happy to do that if it's their ministry. But if it's somebody else's ministry, well, you know, that's not my care. I just come to get and receive.

You know, you're lucky if you've got me there in the meeting. You see what I'm saying? See, it's the heart of a servant, the heart of one who's ready to give all. And, you know, in terms of the covenant of God, when you're in covenant with somebody, everything that you have belongs to each other.

You know, and I've taught that through the blood of Jesus and the blood covenant that he ended into with the Father, we become family members who are actually in covenant with one another as well. The early church had never had a problem with this. The scripture says everybody that had something of wealth, they would sell it and come and lay the money at the apostle's feet and say, here it is.

You use this for the sake of the ministry. You know, because of that, the early church could support the widows and the orphans and the poor. Today's modern church, oh no, the money goes towards promoting the ministry, promoting the leaders, making ourselves look good.

See, a true church should be looking to the needs of the people. And if there's somebody in the congregation who's battling, you know, we as a church should have the resources to pour into that person and help them. Now, how is that going to happen? It's only going to happen if those in that ministry have got the attitude, what I have doesn't belong to me.

Oh, that's a tough one. See, here's somebody who doesn't have a car. I've got two.

It cost me a lot of money for those cars, you know. Took me an age to save up for them. It's not my problem that they don't have a car.

You know, that's not even the love Jesus asked for. Jesus said, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. See, some of us, we can't even keep the old covenant which says love your neighbors as yourself.

Because you see, if you loved your neighbors as yourself, you'd give them one of the cars. If you have a loaf of bread and they're hungry, you share it. Jesus said, no, you give them the whole loaf because that's the way I love.

That means you give them the only car you have and trust God for a new one for yourself. How could you preach something like that? Jesus did. He did.

And you know what? He didn't do it without reward. You know, when he said to the rich young ruler, sell all that you have and come follow me. And the guy said, oh no, that's not to give up.

And afterwards, the disciples came to him and said, but Lord, you know, we've given up everything to follow you. You know, they left their business behind, they left their income behind to follow him. And he said, don't worry, you'll get a hundredfold more in this life and in the life to come.

See, you're actually investing into yourself, not into somebody else. Are you ready to promote the ministry that you're under? Or you're going to wait until it's your own ministry and then try and promote it and advertise it and tell everybody about it. See, are you prepared to say, this is the ministry I'm under and I'm part of.

I want you to come and have a look. I want you to come and receive this so much here. See, these are the people who have proved themselves faithful.

These are the people who we can trust to rise up in leadership with us to do the work of God. That's what we're looking for in ordination. So if you're thinking, well, you know, that's not fair.

Why are you ordaining these people? What about me? Okay, there's a few conditions and that's one of them. There's a must desire to be placed in a position. This is a true saying, whoever desires the office of an overseer, desires a good job or office.

You know, there's no point in offering somebody something that they didn't want. See, we don't just go to people and say, hey, here's ordination for you. We're saying, hey, we'd like to offer this to you.

Do you want it? Yeah, well, I suppose if you really want to give it to me, why not? I don't want you. I don't want you. Go somewhere else.

See, I want to see a passion. I want to see somebody who says, yes, this is really what I've been desiring of the Lord. You know, sometimes we complain because the Lord gives other people more things than he gives us.

Do you know why? Because they desired it. Scripture says, follow after love and earnestly desire. Chase after spiritual gifts.

You'll give them. Oh, why does the Lord use that person? He doesn't use me. Maybe they had a passionate desire and said, oh, Lord, use me.

Oh, Lord, use me. Yeah, but you want to also be a hotshot now and be used and everybody think you're great. You see them being used and everybody talking about it.

Well, it's not fair. I wanted that too. Yeah, for the wrong reasons.

See, the motive of the heart is so important. You know, it's a mistake to appoint somebody who doesn't have the desire for it and doesn't have the commitment. The Lord never imposes himself on us.

And we should never impose ourself on anyone else. See now, we should never do this to make ourselves look good. You see now, we have this person in our church who has real natural talents and they're actually quite famous.

They appear on TV. Maybe a famous singer or an actor or something. This is the person we want to be, one of our leaders.

Makes us look good. Can you believe that great famous person has actually committed himself to this local church? Wow. Your ministry looks awesome, doesn't it? Because you're attracting such important people.

You know, in the status quo church, and I saw this when I was in the status quo church, even as a minister already, the elders of the big church were the directors of large companies. They were people who were wealthy and influential, who are known out there already. Well, these are the people who qualify now to be leaders and elders in my church, not in my church, not in this ministry.

I'm sorry, that doesn't qualify you. We want to appoint somebody who's got a lot of money. Well, you know what? If we make them a leader, they're going to point to us.

So let's appoint them. It's going to benefit us financially. Wrong motive, wrong reason.

I want to appoint somebody who has a reputation and a high position. You know, somebody who's a doctor, a lawyer, a politician. We're going to have that person in our church in leadership.

It'll make us look good. And if you think this is far-fetched, just go and have a look out there and see who's being appointed to be the elders of the local churches. Not insignificant little you, because you're not important enough.

Never mind how spiritual you are, how committed you are to the kingdom of God. It doesn't count. It's unscriptural and it's wrong.

I'd rather we stay in all small, insignificant little group and appoint people that mean business with God and to pull in all the big names out there. Now, we've made this mistake in the past. We've appointed people, not so much for those reasons, but we felt that maybe, you know, if we had a few more leaders and elders, it might boost this ministry a bit.

And, you know, sometimes there's even a need for recognition there that, you know, if we just had a few people who were committed to us, it would make us look better. Only to find that these people sometimes had their own agenda. They weren't committed to our vision.

They just came to take what they could get to build their own. They don't last. And if you try and put a bit of pressure on them to say, hey, you're supposed to be part of us.

I see you going out there and promoting others and building your own little thing. But you've never brought anybody here yet. You've never recommended us to anybody else yet.

But yet it's good enough for you to come and get what you need. But then you go out there and you build your own empire. I'm not going to make that mistake again.

I'm going to test. And I'm going to look carefully at whom I appoint. Those who we appointed today have qualified in all of these.

And I can boldly say so. And that's why I can boldly make these statements. Person who is ready for ordination is someone who can be relied on to do the job.

And they've proved that by being faithful in doing previous jobs that were given to them. They've shown a spirit of willingness to roll up their sleeves and work. All says to Timothy in the things that you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, you commit these things to faithful men and women who will be able to teach others also.

You're ready to give away all you have but not to everybody. Only to those that are faithful who've proved themselves faithful. So you understand now who qualifies for ordination? And if you've been complaining and some of those things hit you, maybe that's why you haven't qualified you.

I'm not just speaking to the people here. I'm speaking to camera. Everybody's going to hear this.

Okay, who carries out ordination? Who is qualified to ordain somebody? Firstly, somebody who's been previously appointed. Remember authority is delegated downwards. We can only delegate to others what we ourselves have received.

Remember when they said to Jesus, I have the authority to kill you, to crucify you. I think it was Herod. Jesus said, you wouldn't have any authority.

This was given you by God. You've got no authority. Be grateful for what you do have because if it wasn't given to you, you wouldn't have it.

They don't think you're such a big shot. You've been given authority to pass down. Now that includes a group of leaders in the local church.

In the old English, it was known as the presbytery. It refers to the group of elders, all of those who've been ordained as leaders in the local church. But it also includes the fivefold ministry because it said there in Acts 13 that they were in the church that was Antioch, some prophets and some teachers.

So these were elders. They were leaders. They'd been ordained into the local church as ministers, but they also had a fivefold ministry over and above.

So there is an overlap, but they're not the same thing. Now, if there's an apostle present, you have an added benefit because only an apostle can impart what they have to others. I see evangelists standing up there and saying, come, we're going to lay hands on you and impart to you.

You can't impart anything. Only an apostle can do that. You can pray and God can impart and God can even take what's on you and put it on that person.

But you don't have the authority by choice to give to somebody else. I've read of a great man of God from the past who had a personal relationship with the great Smith Wigglesworth. People call him the apostle of faith.

Smith Wigglesworth was not an apostle. He was an evangelist. And he shared that one day, Smith Wigglesworth laid hands on him and tried to impart to him what he had.

But he never ever rose up and became famous or functioned anywhere near the power that Wigglesworth had. Because it wasn't Wigglesworth's authority to give. He was not an apostle.

Now, Paul writes to the Corinthians and he said, I long to see you that I can impart some spiritual gift to you. Okay. Now, if you've gone and had people lay hands on you for impartation, be very careful.

You could receive something that they have that you don't want. That's why the scripture says, lay hands suddenly on no man and do not be a partaker of other people's sins. Laying on of hands is a very powerful thing and we'll look at it shortly.

If you have an apostle present at an ordination, you can have more than delegation of authority. You can have an importation of spiritual gifts and ministries, and you can have the creation of a new garden. Now, those of you who have studied my apostolic course will know what I'm talking about, so I'll explain it to the rest of you who haven't.

An apostle is like the husbandman of a garden. And this lies in the realm of what we call the apostolic mandates. Now, within a garden are many trees, each individual, but together those trees make up the full garden.

Now, God lifts somebody up into apostolic authority, not to be a leader of a local church. So many men out there, because they built this great big mega church, think they can call themselves apostle now, because they've got this old idea that it takes an apostle to found a church. No, it doesn't.

An evangelist does it far better, and that's at the lower realm. If you're leading one church, I don't care how big it is, and you remain that leader, you do not have the right to call yourself apostle. And if you are an apostle, you would have left by now, because an apostle's job is not to cultivate one tree, but to build a garden.

You should have handed that tree over to somebody else and gone and planted a new one, and a new one, and another one. That is the apostolic mandate. So if an apostle is present at an ordination, there's a possibility that we're not just appointing somebody to be leaders in our local church, but there's a possibility we're about to plant a new tree.

I want you to know today we're going to plant a new tree, because there's an apostle present. We're not just appointing somebody to become leaders here in our little group. We're appointing to be leaders in a much wider context.

Now when that happens, you become a partaker of the mandate of the apostle whose garden you've come into. Only an apostle has a mandate. These days everybody's throwing around the term mandates.

This is my mandate. This is my prophetic mandate. Nobody even knows what a mandate means, but it sounds impressive.

Only an apostle has a mandate, because it's the highest level of authority. We normally reserve the term mandate for people like the president or the prime minister. It's somebody in a much higher level of authority.

So when you are appointed, not only ordained, but released in the planting of a new tree, you're coming into the part of a garden under the authority and covering of the apostle who presides over that garden. You're becoming another local church within the context. Now this is our first little local church.

Up until now we've been a training ministry. We haven't established churches. We've just been training leaders.

But now these leaders have been trained, and it's time for them to rise up and to go out and lead their own local church. Don't worry. It's fine.

Okay. If I were to stay here and build a church, I would be actually negating everything I've ever taught. It's not my role as an apostle to run a church.

And if God should so bless this ministry that it grows, and it gets big, and we have to move into larger premises, I'm not going to be running it. One of you leaders who's been raised and trained up is going to be given the authority to take that over. That's what an apostle does.

Okay. So today we are launching a new ministry. Along with ordination, we are planting a new tree in the garden of GBM.

It's exciting. We're starting a ministry in another country. And those that we are appointing today will be put in charge as leaders of that new ministry which will grow.

And that will function under this apostolic covering of authority. You now have the covering of an apostle and of a spiritual father. Now a lot of people, they call somebody their spiritual father and look to them as their apostle.

And that apostle is usually pastoring a big church. He's not an apostle if that's what he's doing. I don't care what he calls himself.

He can call himself a bishop or herself. These days you've got the women apostles too. Okay.

I won't follow somebody like that because they are violating the very pattern of scripture. They're simply pastors who are calling themselves apostles. They've never been appointed or released.

They don't have a mandate. They've got one tree. They don't have a garden.

Until you've got a garden, there's no mandate in manifestation. Okay. I'm sharing that because a lot of you here are called to be apostles and will rise up into that.

And you need to understand what's involved. To me, the building of the local church has been lost on my agenda. I've been raising up people that I can send out there to build the church.

Now many of them, they just come to us to receive training and they go and they go and build their own tree. Okay. We're not offering ordination to these people.

We're offering ordination to somebody who's coming to be part of us, to work with us by our side as leaders in the kingdom of God and to share with us in the work of the Lord. How then is ordination carried out? And this is my final point. Always, always by the laying on of hands.

You'll see it again and again in the scriptures. Now what does laying on of hands mean? Firstly, it means identification and recognition. Way back in the old Testament, when people had to offer sacrifices for sins, they were told to come and lay their hands on the sacrificial lamb or the scapegoat as it were, depending which.

And what they were doing is they were identifying with that animal and that animal then became identified with their sin. And when the animal was slain, it was offered as a sacrifice for their sin or it was driven into the wilderness in the case of the scapegoat. So when you lay hands on somebody, you're identifying with them.

You're saying, I'm showing publicly that I associate with this person, that I'm identifying with them and that I'm putting my seal of approval on them. Now, when you do that, it also brings a spiritual power to bear. Now, the greatest spiritual power I've found, because it's in our hands, somehow there's a link between our hands and our spirit.

So usually when I pray with a person, but that's also because I'm an apostle and I do impartation, I will ask them to put their hands on my hands. When we do that, I'm actually linking my spirit directly with their spirit. From my hands through their hands, spirit to spirit communication.

When I do that, I can sense what's actually happening in that person's spirit. And then a channel is established for impartation to take place. And so impartation can be included in this ordination process of the laying on of hands.

It can also include prophecy. And so Paul writes to Timothy and he says, remember the gift that was given you by the laying on of the hands of the elders and by the word of prophecy. Another place Paul says, stir up the gift that's in you that you got by the laying on of my hands.

So what happened actually with Timothy's ordination, Paul actually imparted something into him, a spiritual gift that now was resident in him. Okay. So if you're ordained by an apostle, you have an added advantage in that you can get more than just a delegation of authority.

Now, ordination results in a new position of authority. You now can represent or stand in the place of that high authority who's delegated down to you. You now have a covering or a protection, like an umbrella from that authority.

So that if anybody touches you, they're touching them. See, Jesus was the ultimate covering. Remember when he knocked old Paul down on the road to Damascus and he said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Oh, he wasn't persecuting Jesus.

He was persecuting the Christians. But Jesus said, if you do to them, you do to me. As much as you've done this to the least of my children, you've done it to me, he said.

Okay. So there becomes an identification there. And you are in a position now of protection that whoever tries to touch you must deal with your authority first.

Now, because it's public, we do this publicly. We lay hands and we do it publicly for everybody to see. In the world in which we live, sometimes it requires more.

Sometimes it requires a documentary proof. And so we, as a ministry, issue credentials or licensing. We issue a document the person can carry with them as proof that they have been ordained by us and stand as legal representatives of this ministry and under the covering of our authority.

And so all of these things are involved and all of these things are what we're going to carry out today. In conclusion, then, ordination is when someone is recognized and appointed to a position of authority in ministry. It's offered to someone who's qualified, but it's never imposed.

It results in a new leader in the local church. It empowers somebody to act on behalf of another. And it leads to expansion and growth in the body of Christ in the local community.

Today, new leaders will be appointed in a local church. And because there's also an apostle, in fact, more than one present, a new local church or new garden is being formed. And there will be a new branch of global business ministries under the leadership of those whom you will ordain today.

Thank you, Father, for your word. I pray that you will make it understandable to the people. I pray that you will challenge and draw and motivate those who desire to rise up in leadership, that you will challenge those who need to qualify, who need to show greater faithfulness in order to qualify.

And above all, Lord, we ask you to be present now as we lay our hands on those whom you have brought to us, whom we have qualified and seen, who have proved themselves for such a place. We ask you to be present in our group as we stand together as one to release them into this new place, this new position that you have designed for them. Thank you for that, Father, in the name of Jesus.

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