Nothing can stop the Seed...

God has planted a potent Seed in you, says Kelley Varner, and the Seed is His Son...

by Helen Gardiner

ONE of the most anointed teacher/preachers in the body of Christ today is Pastor Kelley Varner of Praise Tabernacle Ministries in North Carolina. Kelley has been visiting this country on and off in recent years and we at Joy! are privileged to receive his monthly teaching tapes.

We felt it was once again time to feature something from Kelley, so here is an edited version of one of his tapes in the series entitled "Nothing can stop the seed." We have featured here the main contents of tape number five in the series. Quotes from the Bible, we have taken from the New King James, although Kelley generally quotes from the Authorised Version:

"For a Scripture text, would you go to Galatians 3:16: 'Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made.' He does not say, 'And to seeds,' as of many, but as of one. 'And to your Seed,' who is Christ. The Seed is Christ.

"Colossians 1:27: 'To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.' Christ in you, the hope of glory.

"Look at Luke 17:20&21, 'Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."' Christ is the Seed. Christ is in you. The Kingdom is within you, and Romans 14:17 says the Kingdom is not meat and drink, but it is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

"When we are born from above that Seed is planted into us. In 1 Peter 1:23 it declares that we are born again by that incorruptible, which means indestructible, Seed. Isn't that wonderful? And the whole theme of this lesson is that He who has begun a good work in you will perform or finish it. And the point is when He began that good work in you, He planted the Seed which is Himself and that Seed is so powerful in you that nothing can stop it!

"Because it is within you, that means that the outside world, the sense world, has no real bearing on what is going on inside you in the realm of spirit and in the realm of faith and so then it is a time of wonder -- Matthew 1. It is a time of witness in Luke 1 and then when this Seed begins to speak out in your life what is going to happen then? There is warfare. Two kingdoms are going to collide. It is not until you begin speaking and articulating that it is powerful, and words are powerful.

"The devil's purpose is abortion. He hates the Seed. He hates those who carry the Seed, especially those who are speaking forth the Seed and so he tries to kill it. He tried to kill baby Moses. He tried to kill baby Jesus and in the 12th chapter of Revelation as this man-child is being birthed out of the woman, there is a dragon there with a flood coming out of his mouth to kill this Seed. So you see it all the way through the Bible: the enemy hates the Seed.

"Then in Matthew 2, with the wise men, it is a time of worship, meaning the Seed cannot be dethroned because that Seed is Christ and He is already King and the greatest son of David is already seated in the heavens.

"Now, Christ is the Seed. The word Christ is transliterated straight from the Greek word 'Christos.' The Hebrew equivalent from 'Mashiach' is Messiah, and Messiah and Christ mean 'the Anointed One.'

"Now, what offices of people were anointed in the Old Covenant?"

Kelley says the anointed ones in the Old Testament were prophets, priests and kings. In the term Christ or Messiah is embodied all three offices and in pure Christology we discover that all three offices of prophet, priest and king meet in Him. In John 20:21, Jesus says, 'As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.' So what does that say about the Church? And the anointing that is on the Church? It is prophetic, priestly and kingly.

"Christ is the Seed. Christ is in me. The Anointed Seed is in me as a prophet, priest and king. By definition, a prophet is one who reveals God to men. I am not making everyone a prophet, all prophets have prophetic anointing and ministry, but not everyone with prophetic anointing and ministry is a prophet. In the prophetic you have got the simple level of the gift of prophecy (1 Corinthians 12:14) which anyone who is filled with the Holy Ghost can do to edify, exhort and comfort. Then you've got a spirit of prophecy that will just come on the people in a meeting. Then there is prophetic ministry which has to do with more accuracy and frequency, a stronger anointing, and then you've got the ministry of a prophet. There are all kinds of levels of prophets: there are local prophets, national prophets, international prophets and then at the top of the heap you've got the infallible Scriptures which judge everything else.

"There is an anointing in you to share your faith and to reveal God to men.

"A priest brings men to God, through mercy and compassion.

"The king in you has power in the name of Jesus to rule and to have authority.

"Now, watch this: Christ produces the Kingdom. Under the word Christ I am going to put the words prophet, priest and king. What am I going to put under the word Kingdom? Righteousness, peace and joy. Where a true prophet speaks, it creates righteousness. The priest produces peace, and the king produces joy.

"Now can I show you the flip side to help you. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to have the gift of discernment, you just need to know the Bible. Anti-christ produces the kingdom of self. What does anti-christ mean? It doesn't just mean against the anointing, anti means instead of the anointing. It is humanism. It is what we substitute for the anointing: our own wisdom and strength.

"Guess what I'm going to put under anti-christ? False prophet, false priest and false king.

"You know how you can detect a false prophet? He doesn't declare God unto men. He declares himself. He is a legend in his own mind. A false priest can draw people to himself. A true king rules by the power of Jesus' name; a false king gets a good PR man to do it. He pushes himself with the means of flesh.

"And something that is deep on my heart and we'll see it, this year: God is about to speak from heaven and say, 'This is my beloved son, hear ye Him.' And tremendous favour is about to come and true promotion is about to come on faithful men and women who have trusted God through the years to do the promoting and what they have done, they have done unto the Lord. Whether they get promoted or not wasn't their heart motive. They have done it unto the Lord, but God is about to bless them.

"Let me give you one other thought. In the Song of Solomon 4:12-16, He looked at the Shulamite, the Bride and He described her as a garden enclosed, a spring shut up and a fountain sealed. Learn this about the Church: she is a garden, she is a spring and she is a fountain. It goes on to mention nine kinds of fruit that were in that garden, and with the exception of the pomegranate all were from another country.

"An immediate application is the fruit of the Spirit. In Galatians 5:22-24, the fruit of the Spirit is from another land or another nature. This glorious thing that is in you and me had to be brought in from another place.

"There is a joy that is just out of this world and there is a peace that is incredible.

"Before we were saved, we were all as mean as snakes.

"In Matthew chapter 1, the Seed is a wonder and that means that you can't explain it, and the key note to Matthew 1:18-25 is how Mary was approached by Gabriel and told that she was going to have a baby.

"The woman could represent your soul (spirit is masculine, soul is feminine) or the woman could represent the Church. God is coming and He is overshadowing individuals and overshadowing churches that you would never dream He would overshadow.

"The other point from Matthew 1 is that this Seed is in us. There are days when I wake up and just long to be an ordinary Baptist, but because of this Seed, God just came into my life and sovereignly saved me. Two years later, he sovereignly knocked me off my feet, glued me to floor for five hours and filled me with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost turned me into another man.

"I am giving you this without notes tonight. I'm not trying to impress you with what I know or don't know. This Word is in my heart by the Holy Ghost. The same Holy Ghost that is in me is in you. Jesus said when He (the Holy Ghost) comes, He will bring all things to your remembrance. It is not my memory. It is the Holy Spirit.

"Matthew 13 says that it is not just any old seed that brings the offence; it is the seed of the Kingdom. The Seed of the Kingdom says there is no other King, there is no other way. Folks get downright mean when you tell them, 'This is the way it is' because they are always wanting an option. 'I'm special.' No, you don't get a vote. This is the way it is.

"Folks are not used to that, but it is the way of the Kingdom; it is the Seed of the Kingdom and because of that Joseph had it in his mind to put her away because she was carrying the Seed. And it is going to take God speaking to you from heaven to recognise those who are carrying the Seed.

"You will find that if you press in and go on to know the Lord it will cost you some relationships. If you follow God the way you really want to, you are going to discover something: people will back off. I have seen it happen for 30 years. This Word and this Seed is so powerful, and you stick it in people and sometimes it will take two or three years just for them to sort it out because they are not used to that.

"I thought for a while that I was going to write a book and the name of the book was, It's not my fault, God did this to me! It wouldn't be a good-selling book, because the only people who could understand it would be Kingdom people.

"Seriously... think of Joseph in the prison house, think of David in the cave and think of Jesus on the cross. It pleased the Father to bruise Him. God did this to me, and when you understand that there is something working in you that is so powerful, so incredible and it has got a hold of you and you've got a hold of it -- and it is really in charge.

"The times in my life when I've struggled have been because I have struggled against the Seed being in charge. The times in my life when I'm happy and at rest, are when I let the Seed do the walking and the talking.

"Chapter 1 of Matthew was that the Seed is a wonder. Chapter 1 of Luke was that the Seed is a witness, it can't be silenced and in the opening verses there you have got the birth of John the Baptist. But do you know what Gabriel represented? He was an archangel, but what did he represent when the Seed was speaking?

"The apostles. How did I get that?

"He was sent, and in Luke 1:19-26 it says that he was sent. But what was the verb? Apostello which is the verb of the noun apostellos which is the Greek word for apostle, which means to be sent with authority, to be fully authorised or to be sent fully representing the name of the one who sent you. Gabriel was sent apostolically to Zacharias and Elizabeth, he was sent apostolically to Mary. Now that is real important.

"Gabriel is an archangel. Transliterated: arche means 'ruling,' argelos' means messenger' -- archangel, 'ruling messenger.' What is an apostle? He is a messenger who can rule, he is a messenger with authority. Gabriel is a picture of the apostolic company in these days and until real apostles bring the word to the woman we aren't going to know what prophets are; we are not going to know what apostles are about.

"There is so much confusion in the body of Christ because some Tom, Dick and Harry is saying God told me this, God showed me that. Everybody can't be right. What you've got to understand is that prophets wrote the Old Testament and apostles wrote the New Testament. A real prophet or apostle will build on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2: 20). A real prophet or a real apostle, they are going to be male or female, are going to be Bible people. What they have to say is going to be based upon the Scriptures.

"A real apostle has got to know the Bible, no bones about that. There is a 'knower' on the inside of you called the Holy Ghost and he wrote the Bible and he is going to bear witness with your spirit if somebody is sent from God with the Word.

"Then it says in Ephesians 3:1-5 that God has especially stewarded the very mysteries of the Kingdom into the lives of apostles and prophets. I don't want to be mean here now, but you are not going to know what is going on in God until you develop some kind of a relationship with a real apostle or prophet because these are the men and women that God has stewarded the mysteries to.

"I'm not just talking about one person in your life. I am talking about an apostolic company, a prophetic company. Gabriel is an apostolic company.

"There is no genuine apostle or prophet that I know who preaches an any-minute pre-tribulation rapture. That is a strong statement. And I am not saying that everybody who is preaching that is a false ministry, but what they are saying is wrong because it is not based on the Word. And when you swim upstream against that stuff you will not win friends and influence people. There are so many wonderful people all over the world who have stored up tribulation food; some of them are stockpiling guns. They were convinced the world was going to end at the end of last year.

"I didn't make a big deal over it. Did you notice? You know why? God didn't make a big deal of it with me. If He had, guess what I would've done? I would have made a big deal over it.

"But don't be cynical and don't be mean to those people. I would rather people be devout and be sincerely wrong just so that they can be sincere. I can deal with sincere people. It's the hypocrites, I've got a problem with.

"Gabriel is an apostolic angel, an apostolic company. Then, Elizabeth prophesies and what did she say to Mary? She said, Luke 1:46, 'Surely there will be a performance of all that God said.' Surely there will be a performance of all that God has promised us.

"What happens when somebody who has been overshadowed by the same Holy Ghost comes and they embrace? There is a witness and that which is prophetic, yet unborn, leaps and responds. There is all kinds of stuff in you guys that is prophetic but as yet unborn.

"How long was Elizabeth carrying John when Mary went to her house? How long did Mary stay there?

"You must stay till the baby is born. I would give anything if everybody who was ever apprehended by God to sit at this table and be part of this covenant family would have stayed until the baby is born.

"I don't condemn anybody. I'm smarter than that. I know that the only reason I'm here right now and you're here right now is because of the keeping power and the grace of God. There has been enough stuff thrown at me and you to knock anybody down.

"My hope is not in my ability or yours. My hope is in the Seed and the Seed is the one to whom the promise was made. The old prophet said, 'Who shall stand when He appears?' He will. And the only reason you'll still be standing when He appears is because He is still standing in you.

"God is giving us the promise. I'm going to stay with you until your baby is born. I dare you to stay with me until my baby is born. Cause I feel like I'm about 13 months pregnant with triplets. I just wish that everyone who had the Seed in them would stay that extra three months.

"Those last three months. Isn't it interesting... 1-2-3. Passover, Pentecost, the last trimester -- Tabernacles.

"And then Mary sang the song of the Lord in Luke chapter 1. It was actually the Seed that sang in her. John leaped, but Jesus sang.

"You remember when Zacharias called for the writing tablet. What does a writing tablet mean in Scripture? The tables of your heart, not written up with ink, Paul said, but with the Spirit of the living God. So, my punchline is: give God something that He can bless.

"And when Zacharias wrote on the tablet, 'His name is John,' who said that? Gabriel. When you will allow God to write on your heart the words of the angel He will loose your tongue like Zacharias' and catch you up.

"His name is John.

"In closing: everybody and his neighbour were there; all the denominations and non-denominations were there and all the hired guns, all the party prophets. And when that old man said, 'His name is John' it shocked them. Because what were they expecting to name that child? Zacharias junior.

"The punchline to that is what I leave with you: fix your heart, set your compass, this year He will do for you and me and for us that which is exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think. It won't be Zacharias junior. It won't be Church as usual. His name will be called -- John."