Page 65 - Evidence of Things Unseen

Within a couple years from the time I was put out of my place of ministry, Living Faith
underwent further decline. This church had at one time during our period among them
about 150 people in attendance, but after I departed it declined to the point where some
Sundays would find only fifteen or twenty people in attendance. The ministers also had a
falling out with one another and two of them left, leaving only Richard and one other man
to minister to a dwindling fellowship.
There are many histories recorded in the Old Testament that bear great resemblance
to the experiences we have known at the two churches spoken of in this book. We can read
in the Scriptures of many people who were brought to a test of faith, and they failed the test,
turning back from a course of obedience. The result was always decline, bondage, judgment
upon carnal decisions and actions, and a removal of the cup of blessing that God had
desired to pour out upon an individual, or people. It is one more evidence of the
unconscious reality that people walk in today that they can witness similar situations being
lived out in this hour, and they do not discern that there is a reason that such things occur.
They do not perceive God’s hand when that which began with great promise ends in dead
works and an absence of spiritual life.
I was not at the end of the painful experiences I would have to go through as God both
disciplined me for my covetousness, and prepared me to be used as a vessel of honor in His
household. He desired to release a greater anointing for ministry in my life, but He would
first have to purge, purify and refine the instrument of His choosing.