The Eric Metaxas Show - Ché Ahn (Encore Continued)

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Eric continues Miracle Monday with international evangelist Ché Ahn, who relates stories about the miraculous and how we can experience it too.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Would you consider yourself smart, insightful, precocious, astute, clever, wise beyond your years, and good at checking a cesareth for synonyms? Well, then you've come to the right place.

Here now is the handsome, attractive, striking, gorgeous and quite frankly breathtaking Eric Mathexas. Continuing my miracle Monday conversation with Chee On, that's A-H-N

that's a Korean name, isn't it, Che? Yeah, you're one of the first to really pronounce it correctly, by the way. What do people say? They call me Chi, they call me Ann. She-Han? Yeah, whatever. Which is fine, whatever. Now, Chee, by the way, doesn't strike me as particularly Korean. Is that Korean? It is Korean, but my whole name is Che Ho.

Aha. But when I came to this country, they thought it was my middle name, and so it was just dropped, and so all my papers, my citizenship is just primarily Che on. And so Cheho, does anybody call you Cheho? My mom did. She did? Yeah, especially when she was mad at me. That's the classic thing, right? All right. So we were talking about this moment in your life that God has supernatural called you to go all the way across the country with your wife. You have three kids. Then you get four kids. And you're telling me that even though you knew God spoke to you to do this, miraculously, it was a struggle. So you're saying from 1982 to 1992, you're struggling.

Well, we didn't move out until 84 because it just took time to make the transition. And by the way, it wasn't just me. I invited Lou Engel, his wife, and a few singles. And I, um, and a few singles. And others to come. And so we had around, around 15, 18 people that were part of the church planning team. And, yeah, it was a struggle. 84. I remember after one year, not seeing anything happen. I'll be on the floor just prostrated weeping before God. And I would say, where's the God of revival? You said, come to L.A. for a great harvest. We're not seeing a harvest. But you see, I believe those 10 years, you know, and I would joke, the 80s were from Haiti's because they were the 10 words years, but they were the best years because God was developing character. He was breaking

me. He got to realize I was 28 years old. I was so cocky. And I thought, you know, because everything came easy before, ministry-wise. And just like Joseph, even though he got this incredible vision dream that his family is going to, you know, honor him as a ruler, yet he had to go through the whole Potipher situation, the prison experience. And so I went through my wilderness experience, but there were great years because I had the privilege to go to Fuller and because I had nothing else to do. So four years at Fuller, getting my master's and my doctorate another four years. And I privileged to meet Peter Wagner and get mentored by him. And so it was all part of the preparation. So I really believe when it comes to making of a leader, there's that preparation time before you come into convergence. And it's the character development time to be like Jesus. And so that's why Paul says, I exalted my tribulation. knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And hope doesn't disappoint because the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Well, you talk about that.

I can relate to that because I had many years of character building. And I always joke around. I say, don't you hate that. Yeah. But it's true. I mean, I don't want to talk about me right now. But just to say that I know that this happens. And it was years of humbling, real, humbling, brokenness, different.

difficulty, struggle, never doubted God, but often was thinking, wow, you know, this is not fun. No, yeah. Yeah, and it's just something that I think every believer has to go through. And, of course, we're never, we never graduate. And so we're being constantly conformed into the image of it. Hallelujah. That's the name of the game. Okay, so at what point did things begin to turn around for you?

Well, really, it began in 92 when I quit the, I resigned for the, I resigned. from the church, not because I didn't love the church, but because, unfortunately, the movement was part of, the church planning movement got caught up in what I would call the discipleship shepherding movement. Oh, I think I know about that. Was that like Derek Prince? Well, I don't want to mention names. Well, let's just give the initials.

Derek Prince. Okay. Yes, but they were called the teachers, and they were like these amazing teachers. They were great. And by the way, many of them did repent. for the wrong teaching because they were talking about authority, and we needed spiritual authority because we're all hippies, rebellions and all that, but they took it to an extreme.

And so it became almost cult-like. It almost did. Right. And so, yeah, just controlling. And so here I'm observing this in California as I'm going to Fuller, and I'm seeing my whole movement get into this whole other movement. And so I wanted to leave. And so Sue, my wife gets the word,

were to resign and give the church back because they really planted the church. And so we did in 92. I didn't know the backlash I was going to get from our pastors, our leaders. They thought I was betraying them, even though I wasn't taking the church. I was not splitting the church. I wasn't trying to, you know, move the church out of the movement. I just basically was going to itinerate as an evangelist. I've never heard that verb.

I was going to itinerate. You were going to go out on your own, I think is what you mean. Yeah, exactly. Do your own thing, man. own thing and not very successfully. And so 93 was the worst year because economically, you know, I have four kids now in Southern California, a mortgage and no salary. And so we had to refinance our house just to survive. But then in 1994, something happened extraordinarily in Toronto. So Toronto outpouring of January 20th, 1994. And at the same time, a lot of people

don't know this, but the Holy Spirit fell in Los Angeles with John Wimber. The same Spirit of Revival that was in Toronto manifested in the Anheim Vineyard. And we got hit by the power of the Holy Spirit. I felt Eric I was born again again. I mean, people, I know there are many people listening. They have no idea what we're talking about. This is hard to explain. I had Randy Clark on this program a few weeks ago.

Yeah, I saw it. And he was talking about this. And I didn't even know that he'd been affiliated with the Toronto blessing as it's called. He was a starter. I know. I didn't know that. And it's hard. A lot of people get really.

freaked out by this they say this cannot be God I don't trust in a lot of people that I respect a lot I disagree with them but they they would say that I just don't believe the Holy Spirit would have people acting out in this way and that way and they make a lot of sense I just think ultimately they're missing something so you where were you physically were you still in the LA area sure yeah I was in LA and where I got touch was the annual Anaheim Vineyard Healing Conference they have very every January. So this is Wimber. This is John Wimber. He was hosting it, and Francis McNutt was one of the speakers.

You know, just great, great speakers. And he begins the conference on a Wednesday night by making the announcement, this is around January 25th. He said, we just got word that one of our churches in Toronto, there's been an unusual visitation of the Holy Spirit. And so he said, the same thing happened to our people this past Sunday. We were sending out all these young people to New Zealand on a short-term winter trip. And as we pray for them, they fell down laughing. And they could not stop for over an hour. He said, this is not normal people. This is not normal for our church. So we know something that's up. And so basically what he was saying was fastened your seatbelt because God's on the move. There's another visitation. And of course, John Wembert was the one who

brought the third wave that was come Holy Spirit with him. And he was one of my professors at Fuller because I took his course, signed someone. and church growth and amazing miracles were being done through the Vindered movement. And of course, Jesus is a healer, but they were being used powerfully in Southern California. And so here I get powerfully touched. I mean, I have never shook, even though I've been born again since 1973, but I got prayed over by Maheshavda, who is a dear friend now, and I shook violently for like 20 minutes. You see, this is the kind of thing that I think freaks out some people.

And I was, when I was at the global awakening here in New York, I saw some people, you know, quote unquote manifesting in this way. One thing you can say for sure, it's not the person. It's something going on. So then the question, the logical question, becomes, is this demonic or is this God? And that's the only question to try to figure out because anybody who says like, oh, it's made up, whatever, it is not made up. No, it's something spiritual. do that. Now, I'm convinced that it is God. It could be demonic. But it could be demonic. This is where you need wisdom. You need people that are really steeped in the scriptures and have walked with God

and have discernment. We're going to go to a break, but I'm just so glad we came to this spot. We're going to continue the conversation as long as you can hang out. Che Ho-on is with us. Cheon is with us in the city. I'm so excited. This is a miracle Monday. I'm just so thrilled. to have you. We'll continue the conversation, folks. You do not want to go away. Tell me why Relief Factor is so successful at lowering or eliminating pain. I'm often asked that question just the other night. I was asked that question. Well, the owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right. Designed to heal. And I agree with them. And the doctors who formulated Relief Factor for them selected the four best ingredients,

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he has a brand new book out called modern day apostles modern day apostles by chay on a h and we'll talk about that uh in a little bit but i want to continue this uh conversation at where we are right now so you so you're telling me that stuff starts to happen and you yes you personally even though you've been a christian for like two decades Yeah, since 19703. And so two things happen. I never did this in my life. I never shook before, like I shook that night.

And I never laughed uncontrollably for like 10, 15 minutes, even though I didn't want to laugh. I put my hand over my mouth. And I didn't want it because I just told Lou, he was sitting next to me because everyone was laughing. And he says, yeah, the spirit of joy is coming upon all these people. And I said, well, I'm not going to laugh. And so, you know, I just said that right before the. spirit got hit me and I start to laugh uncontrollably. But you know, this is nothing new. I mean, if you read Wesley's journal, you see how people broke out and laughter, how people fell, how people

shook. John Wesley, now again, we're talking the middle of the 18th century. Revival breaks out and we have records of similar things happening under Jonathan Edwards before Wesley. But you... And Whitfield. I mean, Woodfield. And George Whitfield. And the thing is, we forget. Like, we think of them because they're wearing, you know, wigs and black gowns, and it's another universe. It's two and a half centuries ago. We forget that the Holy Spirit is the same. Right.

And you're telling me that we have records of this same thing happening in those revivals. Well, absolutely. Like, for example, Dr. Kitt from Baylor University, when he writes about Whitfield, Whitfield's preaching, and he says, it's appointed for a man to die once and then comes to judgment. He's quoting for Hebrews, chapter 9. and a man who was a black free man who came to mock his service. In fact, he was going to blow a trumpet and disrupt the service. The moment he hears that he falls down, slain, and he's stuck on the floor, and he can't move.

And so after Whitfield preaches, he's on the floor the whole time. Whitfield comes up to him and says, it's appointed for a man to die once and comes to judgment. Are you ready to give your life to Jesus Christ? And he repents and gives his heart to Jesus Christ. So we see this phenomenon. the 1740s probably right exactly exactly and of course you know all this stuff happened over and over and over this is by a renowned professor from bill you know we just had a thomas kid sitting where you're sitting about three weeks ago talking about george woodfield which is one of my heroes and i write about him

in my book if you can keep it i mean we need to know this amazing history right but you're telling me that under whitfield and under the wesley's uh right and john didn't understand it he didn't understand people are laughing in fact john wesley's famous famous quote is Give me revival without the mess. But if I have to have revival with the mess, then give me revival. Okay. So, so suddenly, you know, 200 plus years later, you find yourself experiencing some of this weird stuff. But you have a sense that this is really God.

You can feel. Well, yeah, because I'm in the presence of God. We're in a meeting. This is not like some kind of evangelism crusade where demons might manifest, but this is a Christian conference. And I'm a pastor. And all of a sudden, the power of God, I feel I received an impartation because two weeks later, I'm doing a youth conference because I was not well known because I'm itinerating now. This is my living, right, before I started our church. And a young girl, maybe around 13 years old, comes up to me, and she said, I'm blind in my right eye.

Will you pray for me? I said, what happened? She said, I was at a carnival, and a metal object flew out of the air, hit me in the pupil my eye. I've had three eye surgeries, and I'm totally blind. mind. Now, when she said that, my heart went out to her, but I have never seen a blind person get healed at that time. And I had no faith for her, but what are you supposed to do? She asked for prayer, so I put my hand over her eye, pray, some kind of wimpy prayer. And when I took my hand off of her eyes, she starts to scream. She said, I could see. And my response is, are you kidding me? Really?

And she said, yes, it just opened up. I can see her face. And so I said, oh, my goodness, did I receive an impartation until weeks before? That's why. one of these words. A lot of people thinking, what the heck is that? You mean that when you had this experience a few weeks earlier where you're knocked down, you're laughing like crazy, the spirit of God is touching you in a powerful way. When that happened, God gave you something in that experience. And what he gave you in part was this gift of healing. Right. And I believe it was imparted to me and manifested. So that was,

now I'm not certain, certain, but I was putting the pieces together. It kind of makes sense. Yeah, so it makes sense for me before and suddenly it's happening, right? Wow. I just, so what year are we talking about here? This is 94, going into 95.

And then we started our church in 1994, and it's been just amazing. We started a network of churches in 96, and we started to plant churches around the world. And then we did the call 2000. We did stadium events, the smallest gathering. We had 35,000. We had a half a million in Washington, D.C. And it's just been amazing, you know, and we give God all the glory. We just jumped in the river of God. I mean,

it's the spiritual metaphor of Ezekiel chapter 47, river from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. And so we just jumped in the river, and the river has carried us. And so it's just been so much fun following the Holy Spirit and just doing what we see the Father do, and just walking in obedience. And I feel Eric, you know, I've been walking with the Lord 46 years, and I can honestly say this by God's grace. I feel I'm in more in love with Jesus today than I did when I first got saved. I feel more closer to him. And I feel that's the way it should be for the Christian life, because the path of the righteous, like the light of dawn, it shines brighter and brighter until the full day. That is so beautiful. I mean, I just have to say, you know, as I listen to you, it's so interesting

because you're saying that you were faithful, you were obedient. You never doubted God. But you went through a lot of hard times. And then suddenly this thing happens. And it's clear that God's timing is God's timing. I mean, we don't know why he chose to suddenly do this at that time. But he chose to do it. And the next thing you know, you yourself are, quote, unquote, moving in these gifts of the spirit, praying for people, whatever. And you take off on this wild ride, which, you know, you would have been happy to do 10 years earlier.

But for some reason, God. I didn't have the character for it, though. I really believe that. And I feel like I had to go through the 10 years of wilderness, so to speak. Again, even the wilderness is very glorious because God is so good. And I felt his presence. I never since he left me. And we felt the blessing of God.

We weren't making a lot of money, but there was always food on the table, you know. And I remember one time, because I was unemployed for two years, someone that brought a box of groceries at our door. and when I opened it up, we just start to weep, Sue and I, because, you know, we said, God, you're so good, you continue to meet all of our needs according to your richness in glory and in Christ Jesus. And, of course, we've learned how to abound as well. Well, I have to say, you know, I want to talk to you more about your new book,

Modern Day Apostles, but, you know, just to hear you talk about these things, that it is interesting, again, that God, he knows what he's going to do. And if we walk with him and we're obedient, he does these things. He doesn't forget about us. But the idea that suddenly this happens to you, and then you're praying for people, and you're seeing them healed and this kind of stuff.

Again, there are a lot of people probably listening now that I think that's such nonsense. I can't really imagine that that's happening. It's an hallucination. But I know so many people that have experienced these things. Today is Monday. This weekend, I'm going to be with our friend Ken Fish ministering in a church in Athens, Greece.

Awesome. Which is a dream for me to minister. in Greece. Now, I've never prayed for anybody and seen them healed or anything, but Ken has, and I'm going to be there. And I get so excited because I know, I know, Che, that when people see these things, many of them have instant faith. And they, whatever, wherever they were before, they know God is real. He's calling me to a deeper walk with him. Because sometimes people have a kind of attenuated faith. They're hanging back or there's some wounding or something and they haven't let go. and let God.

But I know that that's one of the reasons that God does these things. That there's no doubt about that. Well, he's going to use you powerfully. I really believe that. I believe that God's going to... The Bible says these signs will follow those who believe.

If you're a believer, it doesn't say these signs will follow only the apostles or the healing evangelists, but believers, they shall lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. There are many times I pray for the sick

and nothing happens. Right. But I remember praying for one, one of our church members who had cut off his finger in a garden accident, his daughter, and his name is Lewis, they were trimming the hedges, and she cut off his finger by accident. And so he grabbed their finger, went to Huntington Hospital, hoping that he

could salvage it. And they said, no, we're going to stitch you up, but he lost his finger at the second knuckle. So Lewis comes to me on Sunday right after the service. We pray for the sick, by the way, every Sunday. So those who are like prayer come up, we have a ministered team that's trained, how to pray. But I'm there praying for the sick as well. So I said, Lewis, what happened to you. He said, my finger got cut off. But pastor, I believe God wants to grow my finger out. Now, when he said that, to be honest with you, I didn't have time to analyze that. He said, I believe God wants to grow my finger out. And all I could say just in response, well, if you believe that God wants to grow your finger out, I'm going to stand with you, Lewis, and pray for your finger to grow out. So I prayed

for him and totally forgot about it. Two months later, he's in line again for prayer. But he has his hand behind his back this time. All right. This is the ultimate cliffhanging. Ladies and gentlemen, don't go away. I can't wait to hear the rest of this story. Stick around. Every day, the parallel economy grows bigger and bigger. It's powered by everyday Americans who are sick and tired of all the woke propaganda being jammed into every product they consume. Big mobile companies are no different. For years, they've been dumping millions into leftist causes. And we had to take it because you needed a cell phone. Probably thought there was no alternative. But now there is Patriot. Mobile is America's only Christian conservators. of wireless provider offering dependable nationwide coverage on all three major networks.

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You've got to tell us the rest of the story. So he shows up at church. And he says to you, he has faith that his finger is going to be. He healed. When he first came to me, he said, Pastor, I believe that God wants to heal my finger and grow my finger out. Now, if you don't mind my asking, how much of the finger was cut off? It was cut off just in the first knuckle. So we're talking about it like an inch off. More than an inch. Yeah, more than an inch. I'm horrified. Please continue. And so two months later, he's... By the way, that's the second knuckle. Yeah, second knuckle. That's the big knuckle. Right, the big knuckle, right, exactly there. And so he stood in line to receive prayer like we do every Sunday after the service. But he had his hand behind his back. and I totally have forgotten because it's been two months.

And to be honest with you, I didn't think it was going to grow out. Wait a minute. What had been two months? Well, when he cut off his fingers, so he prayed for him the first time. He said, Pastor, I believe that God wants to grow out my finger. Right. And I said, just more as a pastoral, just sensitivity, I said, if you believe God wants to grow your finger out, I'm going to stand with you, Lewis, that your finger will grow up. Okay, so you pray for him.

I prayed. I just said, I commanded a finger to grow out in Jesus' name, but I didn't really believe it was going to happen. Because fingers don't grow out, folks, let's face it. Okay, so he goes away for two months. Two months later, he comes back. Well, he was there at church, but here's what happened. He comes up to me, and he said, Pastor, remember when you pray for my finger two months ago? And I said, yeah, whatever happened?

He said it started to grow out, but it started to grow out very, very slowly. And so I decided to wait until it fully grew out before I showed it and said, look, and he had a brand new finger, including a brand new fingernail. And so I am freaking out. And I said, wow. And again, it wasn't my faith. I think it was his faith, but it was God who gave him the grace and mercy. But here's a greater miracle.

His daughter, Amber, was not saved when she could off his finger. She was under so much condemnation, just thinking. Okay, so she's not a Christian. She's not a Christian. She was mistakenly cuts her father's finger off. Right. But when she saw a little guilty. You know, guilty, shame, condemned.

But when she saw the finger grow out, she became a follower of Jesus. And that's a greater miracle. and so that's how God will move to reach a teenager, 16-year-old teenager. I have to ask you, Che, because this is how my brain works, right? Doctors, I assume, would say that fingers that are cut off at the big knuckle do not grow back. Like, that doesn't happen. Right. So did he take this to a doctor and show a doctor?

Because it seems to me if you don't do that, you're crazy. Well, this is kind of, you know. Right. Well, he did go to the doctor first initially to sew his finger back on, but the doctor said that's not going to happen. Right. We're just going to sew you up and you're going to have a stump for the rest of your life. But here's the thing. I don't know about what happened afterwards if he showed it to a doctor, but I have seen so many people get healed.

And when they go back to the doctors, the doctor's two responses, either they believe or they're absolutely incredulous. And they say, well, we misdiagnosed. And we had a woman with acute leukemia get healed, and the doctor wanted to put her on treatment immediately. And she said, I'd need to have my pastors pray for me on Sunday. She went to the doctor Friday. She said, I'll come and see you on Monday. And the doctor was upset because he wanted to admit her immediately on Friday when they did the blood test and found out she had leukemia. And by the way, she was vice president of World Vision.

And so we're talking about a well-respected woman, a very intelligent, just brilliant woman who, her background's marketing. But anyway, she goes to the doctor, she goes to your Belinda Hospital, and they take tests after tests on Monday. They cannot find any trace of leukemia, which is cancer of the blood. And they said, we must have misdiagnosed you. And that's their answer because it just doesn't have, they don't have the paradigm for it. But if God creates the universe, how could he not create? Well, a finger to grow out. It seems logical.

But, you know, I guess whoever it was who had his finger healed, I feel like he has a responsibility to go back to these doctors with the x-ray, whatever it is, just for the sake of the doctor, to say, I'd like you to see something. Because that's, you understand, this is crazy stuff. You know that, a finger to grow back. That does not happen. I've seen a lot of people with stumps that stuff doesn't grow back. Exactly.

That is nuts. I love it. The thing that encourages me is that we have a lot of people who are amputees coming from the Middle East Iraq, Afghanistan vets. And if God could grow a finger, why not grow up back an arm or a leg? And so that's what I'm believing God for. We're going to see greater miracles in the years ahead. Oh, man. Oh, I love it.

I want to talk about your new book, Modern Day Apostles, operating in your apostolic office and anointing. Now, what do you mean by this? that. You know, when people say things like your apostolic office, a lot of people listening, they don't know what that means. Well, you know, the word apostle appears 82 times in the New Testament. And so the word apostle, apostles, plural, 82 times, which is interesting because the word pastor, and by the way, we built our whole church government on the word pastor, that appears only one time in Ephesians 411, that it gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelist. Do you know what the Greek is for these? Because I'm Greek, but I don't know these terms.

Yeah, it's poignant. It's. appointment for pastor. Now, there are synonyms like episcopas, which is the word bishop. Episcopos. Yeah, or overseer. Or Presbyteros, which is the great word for elders. Right. But even if you add those synonyms up, it's only 67 times. Right. So whatever happened to the apostolic ministry. And so part of the confusion is that there are 12 apostles, and they're called the apostles of the lamb, and they will have a distinct place in the kingdom to come, so no one's going to replace them. Okay, we're going to go to a break. When we come back, we are talking to Cheon, A-H-N.

The book is Modern Day Apostles. Don't go away. Hey, folks, this Eric Metaxas show. Where do I get the best guess? You get N.T. Wright, Randy Clark, Oz Guinness, Cheon. It's just wonderful to have such a panoply of leaders in faith to talk to about all these things. Now, your book, we're just talking about, it's called Modern Day Apostles, and you're explaining this idea of what it is to be an Apostle. So you said there are 12, we always

think of the 12 apostles. And they are to be honored, and there will no replacement for those apostles. But we see in Scripture all these other people called apostles, like the Apostle Paul, who are not part of the original 12. Of course, James, the Brother of Jesus, becomes the presiding apostle by Acts 15 in Jerusalem. And the list goes on. I mean, obscure apostles like Adronicus and Junia in Romans chapter 16. So I believe Ephesian 411 is the key passage. When he ascended, he gave some to be apostles, not everyone, some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelist, pastors, teachers, et cetera, until we come to the unity of faith, until the full measure of the stature of Christ to a mature man. Now, we're not there yet.

we come to that kind of maturity and unity, we will always need apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. But unfortunately, we've highlighted primarily the pastoral ministry, maybe the evangelists like Billy Graham, but you don't talk about prophets and apostles. So in my book, I share from church history how that came about through the Reformation, but also through the whole cessationist movement of BB Warfield and Princeton University. and a lot of people who don't believe that gifts are for today, also don't believe that apostles and prophets, but we see it's a ministry as a function that is still biblical for today.

It's so interesting to me how they're, you know, when we talk about these so-called cessationists, it seems to me a little bit, their doctrine strikes me as a little bit contrived, and it doesn't meet, you know, Occam's razor. It sort of looks like they've worked hard to get there, but that common sense would say, no, we still have healing today. We have many examples of healing today. We have many examples of all these kinds of things.

And just because we have the canon of Scripture, the sacred scripture, to make a doctrine that says, once that happened, all these things go away, it always has struck me as far-fetched, not just wrong, but that it seems far-fetched. And I understand their arguments, and they make many good arguments, but so many of us have observed these things. their own eyes. But here Jesus himself calls them Apostolos, the Greek word, sent out one. I mean, think about it. He could use the term prophet, and they would understand that language, because Israel had a history of prophets. So when he comes down from the mountain acts, I mean, Luke 6, verse 12, and then verse 13, he selects 12 and calls them apostles. Actually, that was an offensive title, because the Romans used the word apostles. As you know, as they conquered, they wanted to make sure that the Roman law was obeyed, Roman culture was upheld, and the one to enforce that was an apostle,

sent out by Caesar to enforce Roman culture. And he was either a military person, a general or an admiral, or a governor like Pontius Pilate. So what Jesus is saying, I also have a kingdom, and I also have a kingdom culture, and I want you to bring about not only my word, but bring about heaven to earth, and that's why I'm calling you apostles. And so it's a very very important. strategic, initially offensive word because, you know, they didn't want to be associated with Rome. They hated the Romans. But Jesus used a secular terminology, just like he did with the word church. Ecclesia is a secular term. It goes all the way back to Athens when they had a legislative body to determine laws for their nation. And so God says, you're my ecclesia, but also he calls

some to be apostles. And I believe apostles, see, I, We're not talking about a title. It's not like a business card. I've never been called Apostle J. Earth and like that. But it's a function. And it's part of your identity. If God has called you, if you're a child of God, we're all kings and priests. But if God's called you to be a pastor, that's part of your identity.

If he's called you to be a prophet, that's part of your identity. And if he's called you to be an apostle, that's your identity as well. And the reason why that's so important is because your identity determines your destiny. once you realize what your calling is, it helps you with your job description and how to steward that calling and fulfill your destiny in God. And so what does it mean to have an apostolic office or an apostolic calling on your life? What does that look like? Well, first of all, I share my book 30 characteristics of an apostle, so there are a lot. Of course, I talk about, you know, Christ-like character, you're a servant leader.

But essentially, you're to bring heaven's culture to earth, bring transformation. So where there's injustice, we're to bring about justice. So that's why the kingdom of God's not meat or drink, but it's righteousness, peace, and joy, the Holy Spirit. And that word righteousness doesn't just mean computed righteousness or positional righteousness. It means justice. We're to bring justice because heaven on earth is just. And so that's why I believe, and if I could be bold, I believe you may be a marketplace apostle. And the reason why I say that is I see you changing culture.

because you're not just winning souls. You really want to see transformation of society to reflect heaven, and that's what apostles do. They're wired to do that. And so it's not just, you know, planning churches, which has been the traditional understanding of apostles, but it's really leading other leaders to bring about the transformation or what we call the discipling of a nation. That's so fascinating. I mean, it's important that we understand what the Bible says. And I'm always fascinated with folks like you because you,

You're teaching us things that we really haven't heard, and you kind of wonder why, why can we go through the centuries without people? Who in the past, you know, going back over the past centuries, would you say have an apostolic calling particularly? Oh, you see it everywhere. For example, John Wesley was an incredible apostle. Yes, he was an evangelist, yes. But, you know, Whitfield was the evangelist like in the genre of Billy Graham. Of course, he was like the first Billy Graham, thousands, 30,000 at a time. But Wesley planted these what we call class meetings that end up becoming the United Methodist Church

and became at one time the largest denomination in the world. Yeah. A Protestant, I should say. And so we see how to this day, the United Methodist Church, not in America, but in Africa, it's just full of life. And they're the ones who are speaking out against same-sex marriage or gay priest being ordained. United States wants to do it, but thank God for the revival in. Africa. Right. It's all those homophobic Africans.

We're going to be right back. It's just wonderful. For a final segment, folks, don't go away. Che-Anne is here. The book is Modern Day Apostles. I'm talking to Che-On. If you want to find him on the web, you can go to chaean.org. It's C-H-E-A-H-N.org. Che, we've just got a few minutes left. What else can you tell us about modern-day apostles?

Well, there are a lot of apostles today during amazing things. Like, for example, when we think about the underground house church movement, you know, estimated around 100 million believers now. I mean, think about it, Eric, in 1948, when commoners took over one million evangelicals and they thought that was the end of Christianity, but the church exploded. And there are only primarily five major underground house church movements. And they're all led by what they call an uncle. They can't use Christian terminology like a pastor or apostle because they would be in trouble. It's the underground church. So they call each other brother, sister, etc. But a

apostles are called uncles, and they're five uncles. And so we see, like one man, I won't give you his name just for security reasons, but he's relatively a new convert. Got saved in 1987. He was a farmer in the city of Anway. I could at least say that. 10 million. Revival breaks out of 10 million, 5 million come to know Jesus Christ, not all through him, but it's just amazing move of the Holy Spirit. Two point five million of them are his people. And he has now planted churches in every, single city in China that's over 10 million people now what do the communist dictators do about this he was he's been in prison seven times and and and as a hey hey lebron james did you hear that okay that's just my parenthetical i mean seriously he's been in prison seven times oh yeah yeah a man of god right exactly throwing and these prisons are not nice prisons no no he spoke at our conference so we have this annual conference called global summit and the numbers just boggled me i just could hardly believe and he humble. He's not trying to boast about how many churches, but he's also planning churches and their businesses, actually, in Pakistan, Afghanistan. He's going to places where the U.S.

passport, we could not go, but with a Chinese communist passport, he has this free entree into these nations. And he's so smart about it because he's not, they want businesses. They want the Chinese business people to invest in their nation. So he's doing businesses as a front for church planning. He's crazy like a fox for Jesus. Exactly. And so that is exactly. So we see movements like that. Then we see overt movements like the Redeemed Church of God in Lagos, Nigeria. When they have planted Eric over a thousand churches in the United States, and thank God, because revival is broken out in Nigeria. And we see there's one apostle. I won't mention the same again. But the Redeemed Church of God, though, when they gather together for their annual conference, the first week in December, we're talking about five million believers gathered together under one. roof. They build a facility that is 12 stadium distance long, you know, all under, no, with synchronized sound and video, amazing. This is in Lagos, Nigeria. So we, we don't know about these

things, but we're seeing all these apostolic networks. And he calls himself an apostle, but, and so, so there are modern day apostles. And I, I want to just admit, you know, to think, in America, according to George Barner, there's only one percent of the, uh, church in America are vocational full-time pastors to think that Jesus only gave the 1% some to be apostles, prophets, etc. And we gave it to the whole body of Christ. So there are people who are listening to this program may be called to be an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher.

It's our job to equip them. And that's why I wrote this book to help them identify if they are called to be an apostle because it will help them fulfill their destiny. I am so thrilled. We're out of time, but I'm so thrilled to introduce my audience to you, Che, Ann. I hope folks will go to chaean.org, C-H-E-A-H-N-D-org. Chey-on.org. The book is Modern Day Apostles.

We have to get you back here as soon as possible. Che, thank you. Well, thank you. What an honor to be here.