The Gauntlet
By DN Hoets
The Enigma of Kathryn Kuhlman
Kathryn Kuhlman was different from other ministers. There was an unusual Presence of God manifested where ever she went. She always pointed people to Jesus Christ. He was exalted in her life. However, she seemed different from anybody else. Benny Hinn, when he was a young man, observed this too. He was overcome and astounded at the difference between her ministry and all the preachers of the gospel that he had ever heard.
In one of the meetings, the key to this difference was clearly revealed. It was a great Charismatic world convention. Kathryn spoke – yet not like others – she spoke manifesting truth through the Presence of God:
'Do you really know what it means? Oh, I know there is a great ecstasy of being filled with the Holy Spirit. I know. We are in a great Charismatic world convention here today. You know, I have had great moments of ecstasy. And there is no greater experience in your life than when you receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. That is marvelous. But my friend, do you know the experience of having yielded your will to the will of the Father?
This was the gauntlet. The challenge. This was why I am different from the rest of you. I have entered a door. A door of the cross. I have experienced what it is to yield my will to the will of the Father.
Do you really understand what she is saying? It is the key to the coming worldwide revival as Kathryn Kuhlman is a type of the coming worldwide move of God. This is the latter rain. This is the final outpouring of the Holy Spirit before the coming of the Lord.
However, there is more to this enigma as I will reveal in the coming chapters. Stay with me. This is not a usual article. Nor something to treat lightly. The truth here will change your life and ministry forever. It is what is desperately needed in the church today.
New Wineskins
Let me draw the line in the sand. Let me make clear the challenge. Unless you understand this clearly, you will not understand the importance of this book.
New wine can only be poured into new wineskins. If new wine were to be put into old wineskins, they would burst. In other words, we need new wineskins to receive the new wine.
Decades ago, there emerged two prominent figures in the church world. One was Oral Roberts. The other was Kathryn Kuhlman. They represent the old and the new wineskins. They were like oil and water. They could not be mixed.
Both play a significant role in the last days. The Charismatic movement today is largely based on Oral Roberts. Kathryn Kuhlman was an enigma to everyone and quietly vanished from the stage. However, she represents the new wineskins. She represents everything that the Lord desires for His bride. She is the perfect type of the end-time church. Her ministry and work will resurface once again in these latter days.
What is her secret? What is behind Kathryn Kuhlman? What makes her tick? This secret is needed for her work to explode throughout the earth and for the final tsunami of the Holy Spirit to come in the time of the latter rain.
Dead and Living Faith
Centuries ago, Martin Luther had a revelation from God. The just shall live by faith. However, he misunderstood the book of James. He wanted to tear it out of the Bible. He believed that it contradicted what the Lord had revealed to him which was the cornerstone of the Reformation.
A little light here. James was not saying that we must have faith plus works. Rather he was highlighting the difference between dead and living faith. True faith is of a different character to dead faith. Kathryn Kuhlman had this living faith. The Charismatic world today has dead faith! Drawing the line in the sand. The gauntlet!
The purpose of this book is to show you the way to the true living faith and also to see the utter worthlessness of the dead faith. We need new wineskins. We also need to utterly discard – and regard as rubbish – the old wineskins.
Personal Testimony
This change from old wineskins to new wineskins is a process. Often the transformation takes place over many years.
Many years ago, I came to a point in my spiritual life where something was missing in my walk with God. I had tasted of the genuine Presence of God and closeness of Jesus when I was born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit. There were times when I experienced His Presence. However, there was a yearning for something more. I realized at that point that those in the Charismatic world did not have the answer. I had listened extensively to tapes, etc. of the most well-known ministers of this generation. I was attending one of the largest and well-known charismatic churches in South Africa. Clearly, they did not have what I was seeking and could not point the way either.
I abandoned the church world and sought the Lord to reveal the true way to me. I was very much like the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon. I sought the Lord in the cities and squares and only once I had passed the watchmen that I found that which I was yearning for – the Lord, a deeper walk with the Lord.
A few years later, I stumbled across two books from the 1600’s that clearly showed the way. Actually, the Lord was behind my ‘stumbling’ across these books. They were ‘Experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ’ by Jeanne Guyon and ‘The Spiritual Guide’ by Michael Molinos. Although I had studied other works (and the roots) in this movement in the 1500 – 1600’s, these two works stood out as foundational. They contained teaching which established me further in the truth that the Lord was unfolding to me at this time. New wineskins were being strengthened and given more definition.
Of importance, some of the truths in these books were those which the Lord had taught me Himself when I was a young believer. This immediately made me realize that these works were especially significant. These were truths not read or heard from anyone.
Old wineskins had been completely discarded when I abandoned the church world. In the wilderness, He showed me the way. How different was His way from that of the Charismatic church world! Many years passed. I observed that God was doing similar changes in Benny Hinn and Ed Roebert. I also perceived that Kathryn Kuhlman had the very same new wineskins too. This was why she was so different from other preachers of this modern generation. All the giants of the past walked this way too. Hudson Taylor and Watchman Nee especially mentioned the importance of reading Jeanne Guyon’s work ‘Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ’. They even had this book translated into Chinese and distributed amongst the saints under their ministries.
Once the Lord brought me into this new way – the new wineskins – I perceived that my searching was over. I had found that which I was seeking. The highway was before me. I also perceived how far this generation of believers had strayed from the true faith and how the restoration of this deeper walk with Jesus would be central to the final worldwide outpouring of the Holy Spirit – the latter rain - preceding the coming of our Lord.
If we desire the manifest Presence of God that Kathryn Kuhlman had, we need to have the same wineskins that she had. The rest will follow in His time.
