I did not mean to get so far off the subject matter in reference to the title of this article. However, I had to emphasize a point that many things that we are calling a "new" revelation from God is literally the same old stuff repackaged with new color schemes and much of it displaying a spiritual "new and improved" sticker on the package. However, when we look at the end result, we see that it's really old and only half as good as the real deal of Jesus. Even Solomon said in Ecclesiasties that "There is nothing new under the sun".

However, one of the most dangerous "trends" that is trying to make it's comeback into Christianity is the role and position known as the "Armorbearer". An armorbearer is simply a person who, in Biblical times, carried the King's armor with him at all times and did tasks such as taste the king's food and drink to ensure that the food and drink was not poisioned. In today's Christianity, the "armorbearer" is the one who does all the little, menial, and time-consuming tasks that the Spiritual leader either does not have time to do, or despises doing.

One of the first references of the "armorbearer" concept is found in 1 Samuel 14:1 where it states that Saul's son Jonathan had an armorbearer who carried his armor. Armorbearers were reserved for royality and the children of royality and not seen among the commom people of a nation. In fact, this concept of armorbearing is mentioned many more times in the Old Testament and never in the New Testament. Even though you may think that this is a luxury of royality I would like to remind you that per the original Old Testament model of rule, this concept never existed. The concept of armorbearer came out of a concept of usurped royality which came out of the Israelites rebellious cries to God for a king because it was stated in 1 Samuel 8 that they wanted to be like other nations and have a physical king instead of having the King of Kings in heaven as their king with the prophet as spokesperson. The Israelites were already in a state of near chaos as they went against the Lord after the death of Joshua and God still loved them enough to send the Judges to rescue them. It was near the time of Samuel's death where Samuel appointed his sons as the judges even though they were corrupt and not like Samuel at all. Because of this, the Israelites pleaded for a king. Samuel pleaded with God about the Israelites foolishness and God told Samuel that they were rejecting God and not Samuel and therefore, Samuel did what God told him to do and annointed a king named Saul. Beforehand, Samuel warned the people that this king would take their slaves and their vineyards for their officers, their daughters to make perfumes and breads, and their sons for his army, their sons for his slaves, and still require a tenth of their flocks and harvests. And the people still replied "We want a king and we want to be like the nations around us." We see throughout the Old Testament that what Samuel foretold happened exactly as told to the Israelites.

God wanted a peculiar people who did things God's way and not the world's way. Today, in many churches, we same the same concept in action. We see leaders who want to be like every other church or like every Fortune 500 corporation and give up the rule of the King of Kings and instead exalt themselves as the King of the church. Instead of their church being what God wanted it to be, they want to be like the big mega churches and bring in numbers and money the way some did. Therefore, they exalt themselves as leaders and the people are in approval and in agreement with this spiritual monarchism and help bring their concept of "God's chosen people" into reality. After a while, we begin to see in many of these churches that the leader begins to exploit the people and the resources for his and his "yes" men leader's own personal gain. An army of public relations goes out to make him renown and to squelch out bad talk (even though it may be true), some become leaders while some slave for this man's personal agendas called God. Some take the tenth (now called tithes) and use it for their personal gratuities and for personal gratuities of their "yes" men instead of running the operations of the church. And when that is not enough, he asks for more and more like Rehoboam did to his people in 1 Kings 12:1-6.

While all of this is going on, the pastor has a special person among his leadership that he calls his "armorbearer". The armorbearer is supposed to be properly groomed and mentored for future leadership but in many cases, becomes cheap slave labor to do the menial tasks the pastor does not want to do in the name of "teaching humility" and in the name of "breaking rebellion". Instead of being discipled per the Scriptures, many instead are forced to wash the pastor's car, paint his house, their wives cook dinner for the pastor's family, etc. Exactly like what happened in Saul's time. If you look at Saul, 1 Samuel 9:1 (NLT) states that he came from a physically influential family of wealth and social standing. verse two states that Saul had physical qualities in his height that enhanced the influence of the family. Throughout Sauls reign, we see the physical influences rule over the spiritual affluences and it cost Saul in the long run. The Lord's presence and affluence was removed from Saul and placed on David. Man, in his system of rule judges on appearances, height, and influence while God judges on the actions of the heart, intentions, and spiritual affluence (1 Samuel 16:7). Even though the family of Jesse were sheephearders and lacked influence, they had spiritual affuence in the eyes of God.

• Influence: The ability of a person to indirectly produce results based on power gained through wealth, power, lineage, and authority.
• Affluence: An abundance of riches and wealth.

See the difference. Influence refers to the works and deeds done because of wealth. Allfuence deals with the wealth itself. Saul tried to rule a physical and spiritual kingdom based on his own physical abilities to produce results based on the power, lineages, and authority of his ancestors. David used the spiritual wealth and wisdom to have a heart after God and to re-establish the King of Kings as the head of the nation because David knew that everything came from God. Since David had no physical influences, David relied on the spiritual affluences of God given to him by God to establish God's order and therefore, allowed God's abilities to directly produce victory, prosperity, and holiness by the victory, power, lineage, authority, and dominion God already had. One king relied on his own abilities. Another king relied on God to provide food, provision, and protection. It was after David had died that the appointment of a king went towards descendants of David. In many churches today, the pastor is based more of descendants of the family business called church than the annointing God placed on a person.

Click here for part three of this article