Christmas, 2020

It's hard to believe that we are at the end of 2020.  Whoever we were at the beginning of it, we are not that at the end of it. What we have done with it, and will do with it, is up to us. It's been a year to see what we are made of. Does our faith go down deep into our roots or is it just good enough for fair winds? Is God who we saw Him to be last year or have we discovered that He is quite a bit wilder and less predictable than the cliched boxes we have put Him in?

The  biblical prophets, the true ones anyway, lived with and before a God who was afire with love, with justice,  with mercy and truth.  Their encounters with Him left them speechless but transformed. God's purposes are always what they have been: to show Himself the Father of a people who would reflect His Glory.  The amazing and hard part, even for God, was that He gave people free choice, and with that, inevitably, came choices both good and bad. Realize, dear one, that your ability to choose is something holy, it is something that you yourself possess as a gift from God and with it, you will, by your choices, determine your destiny.  Of course God is sovereign but He has offered you a choice when you came into being. Choose well.  

This year showed us that earthly life can be shorter than we think and more out of our control than we hoped.  Eternal life is what we all are really about and so we should be looking in that direction, looking for what is to come and what it will be like. We have to decide if we like that and want to live forever under the direction of One in whom there is no darkness nor shadow of turning.  It is a fearsome choice. But how do I choose? pray the sinner's prayer? live an austere life? do good works? none of these completely suffice. 

God is looking for relationship with us. He is looking for us to be deeply united with Him, even one with Him--to see His goodness and His good purposes and to work with Him to accomplish them. My life is not about doing more, or feeling I've succeeded or whatever goal the world tries to put on us, my goal is to be more and more connected to Christ and know what absolute safety that Love is all about.  What if you were always jumping with a safety net? What if nothing separated us from God if we didnt want it to? The Apostle Paul said , ""For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39).

Again and again I have seen that our union with God begins with surrender--not as a threatened knave, but as a free agent who can only unite with God by choice and compatibility. Our sense of aloneness stems from our unawareness of what blissful unity is possible with our Creator, and even with His people. What if we were safe? What if when Jesus said that He keeps all that have been given unto Him and no one can snatch them from His Hands that that was true? (John 10:28). What if you were free to be a child of God and to live from that protected place in the hand of God?  There is the old expression, "safer than being tucked into God's pocket with the flap tucked down" --what if we were that safe, even if darkness raged against us and appeared to win? 

There are, no doubt, more life storms out ahead of us. But let us put them to work for us, so that we are able to run our race with great faith and confidence in the One who keeps us safe even if our bodies fail. Each minute, in good times and bad, I am making decisions that affect my eternity. Look at the choices with adventure and curiosity and not fear! Choose well and choose wisely, dear ones! Surrender more and fear less! Godspeed!

The Easter When Everything Changed

I personally think that I will remember this Easter for many years to come. It was the Easter we spent isolated in our houses while the world changed. True story! But it needed to change. So much of life is waiting. The biblical tradition has a long history of waiting in it. Abraham and Sarah waiting for a baby; Noah waiting for the rain to start; Elijah waiting on a mountain; Daniel waiting for the exile to be over; Anna waiting for the Messiah to be born; John waiting on Patmos for Jesus; the list is much longer.

 I’ve been waiting for a long time for what I sense I’m seeing. There are destined times and epochs in the “kairos” time of God. “When the fullness of time had come…” Just when time is about to burst with waiting, it explodes into the purpose of God. The preparation for a servant of God takes a long time, again, I can give you a longlist: Moses, David, Daniel, Jesus, Himself, Paul, Timothy, John the Beloved. God can do what He wants without us, but He has chosen to work with and through us, so He has to polish, temper, and strengthen us so that we don’t snap out of pressure or lose our faith in the process.

Let’s face it, it's been cloudy for a good, long while. The prophet Ezekiel speaks of a “cloudy and dark day” when the sheep are scattered and the Shepherd has to go out and gather them. I have seen that look of fierceness on the Face of the Great Shepherd in these last days, I have seen His determination to gather those that are lost. The clouds of false belief; man-made religion; lethargy induced apathy; confusion, dismay, and inability to endure have clouded the Face of the Living God from those that need most desperately to see Him. So He is going to rise up and go looking for the lost sheep. He is going to blow the hindering clouds away. He is going to go into every last highway and byway looking for those stuck in the thorny bushes of hopelessness, despair, and shame. He asks us to go with Him. He asks us to gather with Him for He has told us, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and who does not gather with Me, scatters” (Matthew 12:30.

 I have seen people who know God and walk with God come back to life in the last week. I have seen hope born, courage arise, purpose return. I’ve seen the glaze disappear from the eyes of the believers who have looked for Him so long, more than they who wait in the cold, dark night for morning. A cloud the size of man’s hand appears overhead. The Lord is standing up to move. Don’t miss it. Prepare your heart, shake off your slumber, fill your lamp with oil, trim your wick. Stand up with Him.

Friends, Dwell in the Living Spirit

"Friends, Dwell in the Living Spirit, and quench not the motion of it in yourselves, nor the movings of it in others; though many have run out and gone beyond their measures, yet many more have quenched the measure of the Spirit of God; and have become dead and dull  and have questioned through a false fear; so there has been hurt both ways. Therefore, be obedient to the power of the Lord  and His Spirit; war with the Philistine that would stop up your well and your springs." --George Fox, Quaker, 1683

photo taken of morning mist on Lake Quantabacook, Searsmont, ME

I Have Chosen You in the Furnace of Affliction

Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.


For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.

Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.


(Isaiah 48:10-12)


photo taken in Granville, MA

God Often Casts Us Into Crucibles

It is very easy for us to speak and theorize about faith, but God

often casts us into crucibles to try our gold, and to separate it from

the dross and alloy. Oh, happy are we if the hurricanes that ripple

life's unquiet sea have the effect of making Jesus more precious.

Better the storm with Christ than smooth waters without Him."

--Macduff

photo taken in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania

The Church of God and the Church of Man

The relevance of the laity received the greatest emphasis
in the sectarian apostolic movements after the 12th century,
and especially in the 14th century through Wycliffe. The
specific significance of this peculiar set of protests and
movements is that their inspiration was purely religious. They
squarely confronted the "ecclesiastical-hierarchical" line with
the "biblical" one. They were, of course, not wholly unaffected
by repercussions of the conflict between the worldly-conceived
papal theocracy and the nationalistic demands of the nations
and their rulers for an independent status, but their heart lay
really with a reform of the Church in the light of the Word of God.

fn. Looking back on these struggles, one is again and again
struck by the daring and independence of mind shown in the
Middle Ages, a time which is always considered to be marked by
submissiveness, especially to authority claimed on religious
grounds as necessary to salvation. This amazement increases
when one takes into consideration our own time, which regards
itself by definition as the time of non-submissiveness.

Nevertheless, whatever movements of protest and conflict there
may be to-day against the hierarchy, they are very weak in
daring and independence in comparison with those of the Middle
Ages. In our secularistic age, in which submissiveness is
devalued on principle, submissiveness to the hierarchical
claims of the Church has never before been so undisputed.

... Hendrik Kraemer (1888-1965), A Theology of the Laity,
London: Lutterworth Press, 1958, p. 60-61

Lord, Truly lead Your church.

photo taken of Ely Cathedral, Ely, UK
in the fog

Making It Through the Fire

Heaven will be where no heretic
will bellow, no schismatic cause
dissension, where all will be of
one heart, where peace will abound."
- St Augustine

When we think of heaven we always seem
to make statements like Augustine's. Wow,
we are really expecting a lot
aren't we?  The human heart longs
for this sublime state in the Kingdom
to come.  And no doubt, Scripture
tells us that the kingdom of
heaven will be ruled happily by
God in peace and righteousness and
that His Kingdom will have no end!
Hallelujah!

But somehow I was having a hard
time wrapping my head around
how we can all live together
happily and in peace eternally
when now barely one Christian can
seem to live in peace with any other
given Christian, never mind all the
redeemed that ever were and ever will
be. And God, too!

I could feel God watching me think
about this and I kind of heard
inside, "It will all be burned away."
Yikes, "What will all be burned away?"

"Everything that is not of My Spirit."

Wow, I suddenly had the clear impression
of what would make it to the next world
and what wouldn't.

In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul talks about this
whole subject, but notice that he talks
about it in the context of division in
the Body of Christ.

1 And I, brethren, could not speak to
you as to spiritual people but as to
carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I
fed you with milk and not with solid
food; for until now you were not able
to receive it, and even now you are
still not able; 3 for you are still
carnal. For where there are envy,
strife, and divisions among you,
are you not carnal and behaving like
mere men? 4 For when one says,
“I am of Paul,” and another,
“I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?

9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you
are God’s field, you are God’s building.
10 According to the grace of God which
was given to me, as a wise master
builder I have laid the foundation,
and another builds on it. But let each
one take heed how he builds on it.

11 For no other foundation can anyone
lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with
gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,

13 each one’s work will become clear; for the
Day will declare it, because it will be revealed
by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work,
of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work which
he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.
15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss;
but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

In God's kingdom everything is built in accordance
with Christ and for the unity of His Body. When
an enemy is truly defeated it is not just the temporary
loss from a single battle that brings victory but the
undoing of the enemy to work any further mayhem.

His weapons are destroyed, his war stores decimated,
his war items dismantled. Here in First Corinthians,
 Paul says a great fire is coming to each of us
and everything that is not of God will burn up.
We who are Christ's,  will make it through the
fire, in varying states of  loss, but alive to God.

 Dear Ones, prepare to look and
be different. God doesnt throw us away when
moth and bug have eaten us nearly to death.
But in order to get rid of the moth and bug the
fire will burn out everything that pertains to it
so that it does not REINFEST! 

Our Enemy will be destroyed, but so will
all his work within us, and his ability to
do more damage. Sadly, we have become
so identified with the enemy's work within
us that it seems to actually be part of us.
But it is not. It will be separated out.
The true part of you that is born of
God is incorruptible. But the rest is
going to need an EXTRME makeover.

So, most likely, most of us will need some
heavenly restoration from the Master Carpenter
when we come through that Final Fire.
Just like a man in the war may lose
two legs and and arm but still be alive.

I do not mean our physical bodies of
course, nor do I mean that our spiritual
bodies, of double course. But that which
remains will need to grow fully into
what it was really meant to be. You will
grow into what you were really meant
to be. Some of us will be really starting from
little more than scratch. What I do mean is
 that if there is much of us that has  identified with
an old regime, prepare to violently part
ways with it.

In our old lives, and sadly even as Christians,
negative or even sinful attitudes and thought
patterns actually defined who we were. Although
God has made provision for it to be otherwise
I am not sure that many of us have availed
ourselves of that provision. And so we will
suffer, more profoundly, the effects of the fire.

I can hear you saying, "But Paul is really
talking about things we do for God, our
works. The fire wont touch me, it will
just judge my works." Well, the verse doesn't
really say that that the fire wont touch you,
it only says it won't destroy you. Bad works
come from a bad place inside that
also needs to be dealt with.

Speaking of fire,  James said
"the tongue also is a fire, a world of evil
among the body, it corrupts the whole
person and sets the whole course of
his life on fire, and is itself set on fire
by hell" (James 3:6).This is where he
asks if a a tree can produce both
good and bad fruit or a brook both
salt and fresh water.  It gets kind of
hard to separate the source from what
the source produces.  Only God can
do that.

Ah, but let's look at something else just
for a moment, the words of John
the Baptist as he describes the person
and work of  Jesus (Matthew 3):
"And now also the axe is laid unto the root
of the trees: therefore every tree which
bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down,
and cast into the fire.


11I indeed baptize you with water unto
repentance. but he that cometh after me
is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not
worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with
the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

12Whose fan is in his hand, and he will
throughly purge his floor, and gather his
wheat into the garner; but he will burn up
the chaff with unquenchable fire.

John the Baptist promises us that Jesus
will baptize us with the Holy Ghost and
with fire. Now I have heard thousands,
of sermons on this  and largely the fire
part  is either ignored or romanticized.
Its made to sound like you are going
to have a rolicking spiritual experience
(Lord, send the fire!) and then I will
 just go home and feel good and be
the same partially converted person I was.
Not so, my friends.

Jesus knew that this would happen, for right
after this, his disciples say that they are ready
for such a baptism of fire and basically Jesus said,
"Oh, its indeed coming" but insinuates they
have no clue as to what it will be like and
that particular passage only  seems to pertain
to their earthly troubles and death!  (Mark 10: 38-45)
Its very human to think that all the change
will happen mystically out there somewhere
or in the heart of my poor neighbor who
isn't as spiritual as I am. Not so, my friends.
Not so. Much will happen in the twinkling
of an eye. But maybe not what or how you
and I think for its exactly what and how you
and I think that is the problem .

And  sometimes a twinkling of an eye
can last a long times when its extremely
hot! Study to show yourself approved of God.
We have been taught many misconceptions
that effect how we live our daily lives.
In all of us are elements of the schismatic
and the heretic that Augustine knows have
no part in the world to come. We aren't
going to look like we do now. Just get
used to it. But we can start the process
of damage control. So you better buckle your
seatbelts and get down to seeking God
here and now for That Day is surely
coming and no-one escapes intact.


St. Augustine
baptism of fire
1 Corinthians 3

Stop Complaining and Fault-Finding

"Do all things without murmurings"

A subtle snares lays in the sin of
excessive fault-finding.Self-knowledge
is rare, we rarely see our sins and
our shortcomings. But let me tell you
something: complainers make even
less progress in this area.

It is doubtful whether one person
in a hundred of those who are always
looking at the bad side of things,
always pointing fingers, always
trying to pick apart what other
people say will be found to be
in any degree aware at how far
their own hearts lay away from God.

They view themselves as spiritual,
as without major defect, having
a sweet tongue, and think they
are easy to live with. What a joke!

The clever critic has a bitter tongue
and a hard heart. God searches
within and none of this kind of thing
is pleasing to Him. Whatever
happened to "love thinks no evil
but suffers long and is kind?"

Critical people disturb the very
air in a room, they provoke
people to argue, make virtue
difficult, exasperate children,
degrade the testimony of
the Church as a gentle people
given to love. Do we forget
how much mercy Christ has
shown us?

Even if we are trying to be
"good Christians" we can be sadly
unaware at the ceaseless dribble
of ill natured comments and
antagonizing accusations
coming from our tongues.

A school child can be quick
to hurt with hateful, jealous,
unkind remarks. Even a
woman who stays at home
can speak poorly of those
that come to serve her. A mother
can mean well but tear down
rather than build up. She may
expect her children to go
astray and so they do.

If you find yourself caught
in this disastrous bondage
take heed to these four things:

1) One day a week keep a strict
account of EVERYTHING you say.
Ask yourself how much of this is
complaining, and present the sad
score to yourself and to God at
night for reckoning.

2) Dare to ask a trusted friend to
keep you accountable and to
tell you when you start to fall into
bad talk.

3) Count your blessings, they are many.

4) Ask God for strength to make
the changes you need to.

If you follow these four simple
things, you can begin to change
the ugly habits that make you
...well, ugly.


"New Helps for A Holy Lent"
F.D. Huntington
adapted and abridged

criticism
complaining
F.D. Huntington
the tongue

Relatives I Didn't Know I Had: Hebrews 11: 22-24

Recently I have been researching my family tree.
My relatives on my mom's side, the DelNegro's,
come from a tiny village in the mountains of Italy
called Atena Lucana. It's amazing to me all
that had to transpire for each of us to come into
the world, and we are largely unaware
of all those little destined moments crossing into
time so we could come to be!

I guess it has surprised me to find out just how
many relatives I do have, since the part of
our family that I know seems relatively limited.
I started to think about this, and how, even
on an earthly level, this fact somehow expanded
me, made me see a bigger picture. Then, I really
started to think about this concept spiritually.

No matter how large our earthly families are, most
of us have felt, at least at times, alone,
out of place, misunderstood, and longing
to find "our people." I think because the
Body of Christ seems fragmented (from our
point of view, anyway, from God's point
of view it really isn't) we feel a bit
more solitary than we need to. Let's face
it, sometimes its hard to find fellowship
with people who really love and understand us,
and are rooting for us!

What we fail to realize is how many relatives
we have that we don't know that we have!
Paul, and the person who authored the book
of Hebrews, and even John, in Revelation,
see things in terms of earth being a large
theatre for spiritual truths to play out
before those in the heavenlies. Angels watch
and learn, but listen to this:

"On the contrary you have come to Mount Zion,
and to the city of the ever-living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem, to countless hosts of angels,
to the great festal gathering and Church of the
first-born, whose names are recorded in Heaven,
and to a Judge who is God of all, and to the
spirits of righteous men made perfect,
and to Jesus the negotiator of a new Covenant,
and to the sprinkled blood which speaks in more
gracious tones than that of Abel."
"Hebrews 11:22-24 Weymouth translation"

Beloved, if we could know in our hearts just
what kind of glorious family surrounds us, if we
could know that "our people" are watching us and
cheering us on, if we could sense that we
are not alone in our little enclaves but actively
part of a universal Body, unhindered by the
constraints of space and time, and undivided
from God's point of view, we would have
a greatly enlarged perspective of what our
life means. The sinful, self-focused part of
our experience could be diminished and the
good, "I'm part of a greater Whole" part could
be increased. "Little ole me" would seem
both less important but also more important.

When Hebrews 12:1 says, "Therefore, surrounded
as we are by such a vast cloud of witnesses, let
us fling aside every encumbrance and the sin that
so readily entangles our feet. And let us run with
patient endurance the race that lies before us"

You go, men and women! boys and girls! You are
included in the spiritual genealogy of Jesus, and
of God, the Father! You have family immeasurable,
and holy, royal family at that! You are not alone,
not forgotten, not poor for resources! We can think
ourselves poor when we are rich beyond our wildest
dreams. We can think ourselves alone when we are
included in a Family more numerous than the grains of
sands are on the beach.

Dear hidden ones that dwell in the solitary wood (Micah
7:14) know you are well cared for. You are never alone!
Perhaps I am writing to just one person out there,
but I know in my spirit that I am writing to MANY
of you. Sleep well in the safety of your Shepherd,
know that you matter and are noticed, know that
in the heavenlies, your true family cheers you on.

And so do I.....

spiritual preparedness
cloud of witnesses
Hebrews 11:22-24
Hebrews 12:1
Micah 7:14
Atena Lucana, Italy

Here is the Patience of the Saints: a prophetic word

The lives of mankind ebb and flow across history,
but these are hours, yes, an hour is upon you,
when things destined for My Son override
the histories of individual lives.

Always I know and care for your individual
circumstances and your lives as individuals,
but do not lose sight of the fact that you,
as one individual, are but a small part of
the corporate Body. All is coming to an eternally
destined moment for Christ and His bridal inheritance,
to whom and for whom all earth's history culminates.

Look about you. Think you that all this is created
for your small life alone? No, it is part of a
great mystery--I have purposed it for My Son and
all those TOGETHER that shall be His inheritance.

Always I am with you and for you but there are times,
of such now is, that the designs of a larger picture,
My eternal purpose, take precedent over the individual
events of what you see as your specific destiny.

If you know and understand this you will be able
to abandon yourself to My purpose more fully, and
more happily. You are like a drop of water in a small
tributary finally reaching the water of a large
river, which in turn finally reaches the ocean.
Does the drop of water that you are diminish
as it loses itself in a larger body?--not from
My perspective, but there is a certain abandonment
needed so that it is FELT from your perspective.
You are flowing toward a great ocean that is an
eternal sea of life in Christ. Be unto Me and
for Me.

You are IN Christ so know you are safe but it is
not about you but about things greater than
you know. Let your perspective be changed and
the view you have of what life is and where your
life stands in it all.

Your life is surely hid with Christ in God.
The pages of human history are surely moving
toward the ordered destiny I have willed: he that is
prudent let him hear. As Peter was bound and
taken to where he did not choose for himself
to go, so your individual lives are bound
up in My will and eternal purpose. This
does not diminish your life but you need to
abandon yourself to Me entirely to feel
the same joy that Jesus did when He abandoned
all to Me. "In the volume of the book it
is written: I have come to do Thy will, O God.
He taketh away the first that He might establish
the second."

Be about my business. Be unto Me and for
Me. He who loses his life shall surely
gain it. "If any man have an ear,
let him hear, he that leads people into
captivity shall go into captivity, he that
kills by the sword must be killed by the
sword. Here is the patience and the
faith of the saints (Rev. 13: 9 & 10).

Here is the patience of the saints: here
are they that keep the commandments of God,
and the faith of Jesus. (Rev 14:12).

He that is unjust, let him be unjust still,
and he which is filthy let him be filthy
still, and that is righteous, let him be
righteous still, and that is HOLY, let him
be Holy still. And behold, I come quickly
and my reward is with me to give every
man according as his work shall be
(Rev 22: 11 & 12).

If you have ears, listen and obey.

The Relentless Hope of the Prophet

Prophetic speech, finally, is not an act
of criticism. It is rather an act of
relentless hope that refuses to despair
and that refuses to believe that the world
is closed off in patterns of exploitation
and oppression.

It stands against a closed present tense
that is either excessively complacent about
social relations or excessively despairing
about an unbearable present tense. This speech
knows that such closed-off life inevitably
produces brutality, the child of despair,
either out of strident control or out of
hopelessness. It dares to assert in any
and every circumstance the conviction
known since Abraham and Sarah and Moses
and Aaron, namely, that there is a God
who can and will make all things new,
even in the face of our most closed-down,
self-satisfied present tense.

This is what the text means when it asserts
that God works an impossibility in order that
“all the earth may know that there is a God
in Israel” (1 Sam. 17:46).

"Like Fire in the Bones"
Walter Brueggemann

The Use of Prophecy in Evangelism and the Church's Call to Israel

by Reginald Kelly

All modern trends are moving inexorably
in the direction predicted by the Hebrew
prophets. In addition to keeping the church
wakeful, this fact should be continually
pointed to in the church's witness, as a
powerful evidence of the Bible's authority
and inspiration, and as a call to come to
terms with the claims of Christ and the
urgency of salvation through faith in the gospel.

Expectation of the sure fulfillment of
prophecy was a given in first century Israel.
The church's task was to show that prophecy had
been fulfilled in Christ and would continue to
be fulfilled in the imminent destruction of
Jerusalem and ultimately, the return of Christ.

Many, such as the sectaries of Qumran, the people
of the Dead Sea scrolls, dwelt in desert
communities in expectation of Jerusalem's imminent
desolations and the final world conflict. We have
come full circle. Once again the world stands under
the shadow of another threatening age ending crisis
over the question of Jerusalem, the "controversy of
Zion." The prophetic scriptures are indeed on schedule,
but few employ this compelling fact in presenting
the gospel to an intellectualizing generation that
demands evidence. Well, the evidence is in our daily news.

The modern church naturally acknowledges that Christ
fulfilled prophecy, though many are at a serious loss
to make the case from the Old Testament. But for the
larger part, the church has scant knowledge of the
legitimate aspects of first century Jewish expectation.
Those "legitimate aspects" are still outstanding and
in evident process of contemporary fulfillment.

As for world Jewry, unlike their first century
counterparts, Jews for the most part are ignorant of
what the prophets foretell concerning Jerusalem and
the last days, but this is beginning to change through
the current popular fascination with apocalyptic themes
(albeit only slightly and with pitiful distortions).

Most modern Jews are secular, and like the world, are
comparatively ignorant of both sides of the prophetic
equation concerning both Christ and Israel. But God has
given the church a powerful tool for the convincement
of a skeptical age. However, due to the scandal of its
recurrent misuse through failed 'apocalyptic scares',
this tool, so powerful in the early church, has been
allowed to slip into disuse.

Prophecy is God's own self-chosen apologetic
(Isa 41:21-23, 26; 43:9-12; 44:7; 45:11, 21; 46:10;
"the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy;"
Rev 19:10b). And where prophecy does not at once
convince, it leaves a seed of witness that unfolding
of events will confirm pointing to the truth of Christ
and the gospel. The seed may yet germinate under the
right conditions, particularly in the case of Israel
when the church will move the Jew to jealousy by the
manifest evidence of the Spirit, coupled with the
testimony of prophecy. Furthermore, prophecy leaves
all who persist in resistance of the saving good news
without excuse (Jn 15:22). Prophecy exposes the hiding
place (Isa 28:17).

Paul said his gospel was to be known to all nations
by the scriptures of the prophets (Ro 16:25-26). This
was the divinely ordained 'modus operandi' of the the
early church's approach to evangelism as seen in all
the NT examples of apostolic proclamation. The gospel
was to be held forth to Jew and to gentile as a
heretofore hidden, but no less foretold mystery
Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:10-12) contained in the prophetic
writings and to be made known to all nations by the same.
Perhaps this neglect, together with its failure to take
seriously the mandate to go first to the Jew, has robbed
the church of some of the strength of its witness.

In these days of restoration, let us pray that the
church will recover this vital key, which is essentially
the apostolic method of evangelism, and that recovery of
this lost key will also aid the church in the recovery
of its own lost apostolic and prophetic identity.

So while the end of the age awaits what God has determined
concerning Israel (Zech 12:10 w/ Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21;
Ro 11:26), Israel awaits a further eschatological purpose
that God has determined to accomplish in the church before
the Lord's return (Dn 11:32-35 w/ Jn 13:35; 14:12; 16:21-26;
17:11, 21-22; Eph 4:13; Phil 1:20; 3:10-14; Rev 12:10-11).

Though not easy to prove exegetically (since it is more by
implication and by the cumulative evidence), there is a
case from scripture that certainly implies that a prior
travail and birthing into eschatological fullness must be
accomplished by the church before the final tribulation
(Zion's travail) can begin for Israel (consider the mystery
implicit in Isa 66:7 as compared w/ Rev 12:5, 13).

Paul said his gospel was to be known to all nations by
the scriptures of the prophets (Ro 16:25-26). This was
the divinely ordained 'modus operandi' of the the early
church's approach to evangelism as seen in all the NT
examples of apostolic proclamation. The gospel was to be
held forth to Jew and to gentile as a heretofore hidden,
but no less foretold mystery (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:10-12)
contained in the prophetic writings and to be made known
to all nations by the same.

Perhaps this neglect, together with its failure to take
seriously the mandate to go first to the Jew, has robbed
the church of some of the strength of its witness. In
these days of restoration, let us pray that the church will
recover this vital key, which is essentially the apostolic
method of evangelism, and that recovery of this lost key
will also aid the church in the recovery of its own lost
apostolic and prophetic identity.

So while the end of the age awaits what God has
determined concerning Israel (Zech 12:10 w/ Mt 23:39; Acts
3:21; Ro 11:26), Israel awaits a further eschatological
purpose that God has determined to accomplish in the
church before the Lord's return (Dn 11:32-35 w/ Jn 13:35;
14:12; 16:21-26; 17:11, 21-22; Eph 4:13; Phil 1:20;
3:10-14; Rev 12:10-11). Though not easy to prove
exegetically (since it is more by implication and by the
cumulative evidence), there is a case from scripture that
certainly implies that a prior travail and birthing into
eschatological fullness must be accomplished by the church
before the final tribulation (Zion's travail) can begin
for Israel (consider the mystery implicit in Isa 66:7
as compared w/ Rev 12:5, 13).

There is a twofold travail of the woman. First there
is the preliminary spiritual travail of the heavenly
Zion. This is accomplished before Israel's pain comes
(see Isa 66:7 w/ Rev 12:5; compare also Jn 16:21; Gal
4:19 as a pattern). Then follows the earthly travail
(the literal tribulation) of the earthly Zion/natural
Israel (compare Isa 13:8; 66:8; Jer 30:6; Mic 5:3;
Dn 12:1; Mt 24:21). It is only AFTER this travail
(the brief but unequaled tribulation) that "a nation
is born in one day" (Isa 66:8; 59:19-21; Zech 3:9;
Ezk 39:22).

This 'one day' is the spiritual regeneration
and regathering of Israel (as also the translation and
gathering of the church) that comes at the 'great day
of God' at the tribulation's end in conjunction with
the destruction of the Antichrist (2Thes 2:8) and the
resurrection of the righteous at Christ's post-tribulational
last trumpet return (compare Isa 25:7; 26:19; 27:13;
Dn 12:1-2 w/ Mt 24:29-31; 1Cor 15:52, 54; 2Thes 2:1-3,
8; 2Pet 2:10, 12; Rev 16:14-15).

However symbol and imagery may be interpreted, one
thing seems beyond dispute, i.e, there is a spiritual
kind of travail and birth that must be completed before
Israel's earthly tribulation can begin. There is a
spiritual birth that happens before the time of Israel's
eschatological tribulation. The two travails, one
spiritual, and the second physical, are bound together.

Unless an unscriptural wedge is driven between Israel
and the church (as in dispensationalism), the woman's
birthing of the manchild pertains to the church (the
true Israel within Israel), no less than the persecuted
woman pertains to both Israel and the church in the
tribulation. Unless the presence of the church is
defined out of the tribulation, as in dispensationalism,
then it cannot be doubted that the church is in view
when the scripture refers to "the rest of her offspring,
who hold to testimony of Jesus;" Rev 12:17). It is not
enough to see this as only fulfilled in Mary and Christ,
since this travail and birth is accomplished at the
threshold of the last 3 1/2 years and is the catalyst
for what follows.

The New Testament shows an awareness of the clear
distinction between tribulation as an inalienable
principle of the spiritual life, and the final
'great tribulation' of brief duration that ushers
in Christ's return. The two must not be confused.
When this important distinction is made, it becomes
clear that the travail of the woman and the birth of
the man child has to do with a heavenly occurrence
that immediately results in the final tribulation
of 'short' duration.

The birthing of the man child completes the time of
the woman's travail, which permits Michael's victory
over Satan in heaven. With Satan's expulsion from
heaven to earth, his time is 'short'; the tribulation
is here, and thus the kingdom of God can now come.
Regardless how the woman's travail is understood,
it is clear that it has not reached its final goal
until the final casting down of Satan, and this
happens only at the mid point of Daniel's seventieth week.

Paul shows that the day of the Lord and the church's
gathering unto Christ must await the revelation of
the mystery of iniquity (2Thes 2:1-3, 7-8). The
revelation of this mystery is the 'without which not'
of Christ's once and for all return. But this event
cannot come until Satan is cast down. It is important
to note that Michael's expulsion of Satan, the
announcement of the inbreaking of kingdom power (12:10),
and the woman's 3 1/2 year flight into the wilderness,
all hinges on the completion of the woman's travail
in the birth and ascent of the man child.

In view of the connection of these events to the
limited tribulation of 3 1/2 years, it is evident
that the fulfillment cannot be limited to the
entirety of the inter-advent period. Rather
something future seems intended that reiterates
in pattern and principle what was accomplished
in the birth, safe escape, and victorious ascent
of the Seed over all principality and power.

I believe this future travail of the church awaits
a Pauline or Danielic kind of priestly travail for
Israel (compare Ro 9:3; Gal 4:19)? What will it take
to bring an indulgent and self-occupied church to
this? Will the church finally understand that there
can be no informed praying for the coming of the
kingdom that ignores the prior necessity of unequaled
tribulation, as only this can end in Israel's age
ending confession (Dn 12:7; Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; 14:22)?

Will the church come to understand that the age cannot
with Christ's return independently of the day of
Israel's national repentance? And will the church ever
come to see its own divinely intended role in preparing
Israel for that confession through its tribulation
witness? The church, rightly defined is the corporate
Ebhed Yahweh. Not only as the witnessing remnant,
but also as the corporate 'servant - intercessor' in
the travail of divine love for covenant Israel.

Such travail will require a selfless willingness
for the events that are necessary to its fulfillment?
What will raise the church's consciousness and prayer
to its calling to travail for a kingdom that cannot
come apart from a church willing to lay its life
down for Israel? [Note that on the basis of
Ro 11:12, 15, Israel's future "fullness" is the
key to an exponential increase of salvation
among the nations. Thus how can a church devoted
to 'missions' ignore its calling 'to the Jew first'?]

It is so much more than Israel's salvation that is
at stake; it is the very name and glory of God in
His covenant pledge that is at stake, though most
of the church historically would see no loss at
all to their concept of divine glory if Israel
should remain estranged forever (Ro 11:25-36).

If the travail of the woman is not wrongly dissociated
from the church, it seems clear that there is an
inseparable relation to something that must first
be accomplished in and through the church that is
related to the finishing of the mystery of God (Rev 10:7).

This doesn't happen in a vacuum; it presupposes truth
and revelation, and the travail of true faith and
intercession. It is not new truth, but a deeper
apprehension of the prophetic scriptures at the
time of fulfillment that will constrain the church
to a place it would not otherwise have gone, in
analogy with Jesus' word to Peter: "Truly, truly,
I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress
yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when
you are old (weak and dependent), you will stretch
out your hands, and another will dress you
("dressed in His righteousness alone"), and
carry you where you do not want to go" (Jn 21:18).
For Peter, it was a martyrs cross; for the church
of the last days, it will be the great tribulation.

I believe the church will be brought corporately
to something almost analogous to Mary's conception
and birth of the Word, as utterly weak, as utterly
meek, and so completely apart from the help of man.
There is mystery here; but I am sure that Michael's
removal of Satan (in analogy with his removal of
the opposing Prince of Persia in answer to Daniel's
travail; Dn 10:13), and the resulting tribulation
(which is necessary to bring Israel back in
fulfillment of the everlasting covenant at Christ's
return), must not be dissociated from a fullness
that must first come to the church, as it knows
itself to be facing the final and greatest test.

This heavenly victory will be accomplished by the
church's deeper apprehension of the revelation of
the mystery of the gospel in conjunction with the
final opening of Daniel's sealed vision. In short,
the church must attain to its own "fullness"
before Israel can attain to "their fullness"
(compare Ro 11:12 w/ 11:25). God has placed the
two in amazing tandem. The one is dependent on the
other and cannot come to full formation without
the other. Israel and the church are a mutual
source of divinely intended provocation with a
view towards the revelation of the glory of
sovereign mercy apart from works. "I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy."

I am personally convinced that the same God who
will be publicly vindicated in His word
concerning Israel will be no less vindicated in
the sight of men and angels concerning a yet
unfulfilled eschatological fullness for the church.
Before it will be "Israel My glory" (Isa 46:13),
it will be "glory in the church" (Eph 3:21).

And contrary to the false dichotomy of the
dispensational error, the twain do meet! Regenerated
Israel on earth will be no less the body of Christ
than the glorified church ruling and reigning with
Christ. The seed is the seed, and it is such by
nothing other than union with the indwelling Spirit
of Christ, regardless of dispensation.

So while the end of the age waits for Israel, Israel
waits for something to be restored and demonstrated
in the church, and it is a sovereign God of absolute
predestination that will accomplish to fulfill His
purpose in both at the "set time" (Ps 102:13),
"for that that is determined shall be done" (Dn 11:36).

God knows how to both to their appointed place
"at the time appointed" (Dn 8:19; 11:35), but it
is a pitiful theology that drives a wedge between
God's sovereign ability and the church's necessary
responsibility. A new dispensation of divine requirement
is at hand. When prophecy will be in the final
stages of fulfillment, things formerly discussed and
debated of only casual consequence will begin to be
divinely required. Much will be exposed and many
will fall away.

As Jesus was a stone of stumbling and rock of offense
to the religion of first century Israel, so will the
offense of Israel, Jerusalem, and the Jew, become an
extension of the same essential mystery in its final
form (see Isa 28:9-16). All nations will be required
to grapple with a prophetic testimony of the gospel
that can no longer be conveniently separated from the
issue of Israel.

As the age began, so shall it end, and all the great
issues that formed the offense of the cross and the
gospel, will be present in the last offense that
brings all nations to oppose the everlasting
covenant in Israel's election and divine right
to the Land. Not because they are worthy in
themselves, but because of what God has decreed
concerning them. It is not their Land because
they are holy Christians; it is their Land because
of God's predestinating prerogative to make them
holy Christians in the day of His power (Ps 110:3).

Apparently, God is holding all nations responsible
to know this, since when the nations come down to
the mountains of Israel to 'divide' and 'part' the
Land (Dn 11:39; Joel 3:2), God's fury comes up in His
face (Ezk 38:18), since He regards this act as the
ultimate act of hubris and violence "against the holy
covenant" Dn 11:28, 30). So it is clear that the
contention of God with all nations over the issue of
His covenant with Israel cannot be separated from the
issue of the gospel.

In fact, this is how God has chosen to press the
issue of the gospel upon the conscience of all
nations. To not have God's heart towards Israel
(especially when the prophetic standard is being
raised in the sight and hearing of all nations)
is to not know God's heart or His covenant.

We may be sure that Satan enjoys the church's ignorance
of this mystery, as it helps to extend his illicit
tenure in the heavens, which prolongs this present evil
age. But at some soon point, something's got to give!

Come quickly Lord Jesus, and accomplish in heaven and
on earth all that holds back your return! Lord, you said
that when you looked there was "no man .. no
intercessor," so your own arm brought to you the
decreed salvation of Israel (compare the contexts
of Isa 59:16 w/ 63:5). Lord, this is not in the
heart of man; it is in your heart.

Lord, in ourselves, we could never be willing for
the price. Create the intercessor in us. It is
Him you always hear. Come quickly Lord Jesus!
Come suddenly to your temple! is our prayer.


Reggie Kelly
prayer
interecession
The Church and Israel
prophecy
the preaching of the gospel
endtimes
evangelism

A.W. Tozer: The Old Cross & The New

The OLD CROSS and the NEW
by A.W. Tozer.

All unannounced and mostly undetected there
has come in modern times a new cross into
popular evangelical circles. It is like the
old cross, but different: the likenesses are
superficial; the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy
of the Christian life, and from that new
philosophy has come a new evangelical technique
- a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching.
This new evangelism employs the same language as
the old, but its content is not the same and its
emphasis not as before.

The old cross would have no truck with the world.
For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the
journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed
by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed
to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and,
if understood aright, it is the source of oceans
of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets
Adam live without interference. His life motivation
is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure,
only now he takes delight in singing choruses and
watching religious movies instead of singing
bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor.

The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun
is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually.

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different
evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not
demand abnegation of the old life before a new
life can be received. He preaches not contrasts
but similarities. He seeks to key into public
interest by showing that Christianity makes no
unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same
thing the world does, only on a higher level.

Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring
after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the
very thing the gospel offers, only the religious
product is better.

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it
redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner
and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect.
To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert
yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says,
"Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the
thrill-seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill
of Christian fellowship." The Christian message is
slanted in the direction of the current vogue in
order to make it acceptable to the public.

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be
sincere but its sincerity does not save it from
being false. It is false because it is blind. It
misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for
the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man
in Roman times who took up his cross and started
down the road had already said good-by to his friends.
He was not coming back. He was going out to have it
ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing,
spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely
and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms
with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when
it had finished its work, the man was no more.

The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is
no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any
of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear
or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the
individual by liquidating him and then raising him
again to newness of life.

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels
between the ways of God and the ways of men is false
to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers.
The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it
intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring
our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at
the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground
and die.

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves
as public relations agents sent to establish good will
between Christ and the world. We must not imagine
ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to
big business, the press, the world of sports or modern
education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our
message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The
life He offers is life out of death. It stands always
on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it
must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and
concur in God's just sentence against him. What does
this mean to the individual, the condemned man who
would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology
be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and
believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to
forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing,
excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God,
but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern
displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust
upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life
and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that
ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to
the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from
the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.

To any who may object to this or count it merely a
narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has
set His hallmark of approval upon this message from
Paul's day to the present. Whether stated in these
exact words or not, this has been the content of all
preaching that has brought life and power to the
world through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers,
the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and
signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy
Ghost gave witness to God's approval.

Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper
with the truth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase
the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown
us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the
old cross and we will know the old power.


A.W.Tozer
the Cross

I Have Heard a Rumour From the Lord...

"I have heard a rumour from the Lord'
and an ambassador is sent unto the
heathen saying,"Gather ye together
and come up against her, and rise
up to battle." --Jeremiah 49:14 KJV

A rumour from the Lord--now that would
be something worth listening to. In a
day when this "prophet" says "this", and that
one says, "that"--some false, some true,
some blatantly deranged, what we need to
hear is "a rumour FROM THE LORD." This is
what Jeremiah and Obadiah both heard
(cp. Obadiah 1). Here is not a "new" word,
but an "old" Word that has never lost its
power. The Word of God is like that!

A rumour from the Lord is not gossip,
it is not a hunch, it is not Entertainment
Tonight or National Enquirer material:
it is a SURE WORD, a word that will come
to pass. It is hard news, certain tidings,
a declared decree. Plain and simple, its the
unencumbered truth.

In the wake of David Wilkerson's words of
warnings, as sound as they may be, it is a
stronger and more strident pronouncement:
Judgment is coming to the enemies of God, and
of His people, to bring them crashing down.

Those who sit near to God hear His rumours--
even if they are whispered, even before they
are executed. The key is sitting next to God.
The key is listening to His voice and heeding
it. God has promised that he shall do nothing
unless he warn His prophets (Amos 3:7). Not
just any prophet--but HIS prophets.

Here is a sure word: "the terribleness,
that is, the terror you reap on others,
and the pride of your heart will soon be
judged" (Jer. 49:16). God is against
the proud, and those who intimidate
through misuse of power. He is sending
out an envoy to take the proud, and the
illegitimately powerful, most certainly
down.

Pride believes it is invincible, that
its fortress is impregnable, that
it cannot be overtaken. But the sure
rumour is that it will soon be thrown
down and come to nothing. And those
who harm others by the way they wield
power will be torn down by the righteous
Hand of YHWH: the whole earth shall shake
from their fall (Jer. 49:21).

Here is a sure word from the Lord:
"Repent from your pride, cease
from your oppression or you will
reap a calamitous judgment." Here is
a sure word and true--whether you
be saint or sinner alike. God's
people will be chastised and purified,
but the prideful heathen will be cast
down and destroyed. Pride and rebellion
shall be wholly routed.

For on the Lord's mount, Holy
Zion, there shall be deliverance
and there shall be HOLINESS and
the house of Jacob shall possess
their possessions (Obadiah 17).
The house of Jacob shall burn
up the house of Esau. We are
either compatible with the
Lord and His Ways or we will
reap the terror we have sown
and come to a fiery end.

So if you are tempted to fall
prey to listening to worldy rumours,
why not, instead, listen to a
rumour from the the Lord? It is something
to bet the family farm on, and your eternal life.
The Lord's rumour shall surely come to pass.

I have heard a rumour from the Lord,
have you?

David Wilkerson's warning
a rumour from the Lord
God's judgment
Obadiah
Jeremiah 49:14
true and false prophets
endtimes
hearing God
current events

Be A True Prophet

"Hast thou not known? hast thou not
heard, that the everlasting God,
the LORD, the Creator of the ends
of the earth, fainteth not, neither
is weary? there is no searching of
his understanding" (Isaiah 40:28)

Read the prophets
as though they were the poets
of the world to come.
For their world is the real one--
the one past our best dreams
or our worst nightmares,
the perspective depending on
the bent of our souls.

The world has not known,
the world has not heard,
that "the Everlasting God
fainteth not nor is weary."
Yet a prophet can know nothing else,
hear nothing else, speak of
nothing else.

So many say, "I am His prophet"
but their souls show no signs
of the agony of being God's friend
in a world that hates Him.

Believe them not.

You are, all of you, prophets of some sort--
true or false.
Be a true prophet.
To do so your first job is to listen to Him
until your ears ache from straining to hear.
It is not that God is afar off or that
He has a voice like a mouse.
It is just that we believe so many other voices
first.

The Voice of God fills the world.
But He does not share His secrets with strangers.
Nor cast His pearls before swine.

"Have you not known? Have you not heard?"
Your first job is to listen 'til you can hear
no other. Your second job is to speak, indeed,
to sing of Him, in agony and ecstasy, until all
the other voices, either join in or are silent.

Be ready to be sung through, or cried through.
Be ready to lose yourself. Be ready to make listening
to God your occupation, and obeying Him your life;
Or go home to bed, and the company of the godless.

knowing God
true and false prophets
Isaiah 40:28
hearing God

Daniel 10 Bible Study: Who Is Visiting Us?

Daniel was a man of God who sought
God: sought Him high and low, in
weakness and in strength, in good
times and in bad, in Jerusalem and
in Babylon. God chose to visit Him.

In these days we often hear "God has
spoken to me" or "God has visited me."
But we must ask ourselves in all
seriousness, "Who is visiting us?"
for we need to know that it is God
and not man, beast, devil or or own
nature that is informing us.

Now that the elections are past there
is quite a pile of wreckage of failed
prophecies and incorrect "words"
attributed to "God" of what was
supposed to happen in our recent
elections. Even words that have been
spoken and may have seemed to come to
pass may still be not words from the
heart of God and not the end of the
the story.

We need not shame others, but WE CANNOT
IGNORE that in so many situations so
many words and prophecies have proved to
be dust in the wind! We are flesh, we
get it wrong but we need to take a careful,
even dreadful look at why we are getting it
wrong. If it was an isolated or occasional
case, it would be one thing but it is not.

Isaiah was told, "Cry out" and when he
asked what he should cry out, he
was told "All flesh is as grass,... but
the word of the Lord endureth forever"
(Isaiah 40:6-8).

Let me say that I believe that God does
speaks to men and women. I believe that
He leads us and guides us. I believe that
that leading is ALWAYS in accord
and proceeding from His Word.

Yet, some or much that we presume to be
God speaking to us turns out not to be God.
Prophets of God could not get it wrong
in the Old Testament. They had to speak
for God correctly. They had to know Him.
They had to be accountable
to Him. Do we believe this has changed?
No, it has not changed! Are we held to a lesser
standard? we who have the Spirit actually
indwelling us?
I think not.

What is the difference in spirit between
a prophet like Daniel and those who speak
"visions of peace when there is none" and
"prophecy out of their own heart"?
(Ezekiel 13: 16,17)

Daniel is found continually seeking the
Lord in adverse circumstances. He has
an awesome encounter with God: "Who is
this one whose face had the appearance
of lightning, and whose eyes are as
lamps of fire?" (vs 6) (Compare John's
vision of Christ in Revelation 1:12-16).


Whether it be Christ Himself, or an
angelic representative sent by God it
does not say for certain, but the
encounter, no doubt, was from the Living
and True God and not a wild imagination.
What are some safeguards we can put into
place as we seek to hear and know God?


1) We must continually seek God and
dwell in His Word, putting Him first.

There are no safeguards for those whose
hearts are not turned toward the Lord!
God comes to Daniel while Daniel is
fasting and interceding on behalf of
His people. He identified with the
sins of His people. This was not a whim
for Daniel but a lifestyle. The encounter
with God floored and devastated Daniel.
It raised God up and lowered Daniel.

Unless we allow ourselves to be emptied
of spiritual ambition and spiritual
thrill-seeking then we are open to deception.

2) We cannot allow other people to hear
God for us though we should be teachable
and part of a community of accountability,
we must still hear God for ourselves.

Daniel ALONE saw the vision (10:7). No one
else was permitted to, but the others
fled in terror because they knew that whatever
was happening, it was a terrible event, in the
deepest sense of that word. .

We must have the moral courage to meet God
ourselves.. With that comes opportunity for
great blessing or great de ception. We need
to know that it is, indeed, God that is visiting
us, and not a figment of our own imagination or
an idol of our own making.

P.T. Forsyth said, "The non-theological Christ
is popular; he wins votes but he is not mighty;
he does not win souls: he does not break men
into small pieces and create them anew."

--(The Taste of Death and The Life of Grace)

Jesus tells us that those who fall on the Rock
will be broken into pieces, but those on whom
the Rock falls will be ground into powder
(Matt 21:44). Either way, no one is left intact.
God has no casual armchair prophets, He only has
those who have chosen to fall on the Rock so that
He might be Everything in them. The one who has
let God deal with his motivations, his desires,
his innermost being is the one who is most
safe from error.

The God revealed in Scripture, the Living God,
is a God to be encountered. When Daniel
encountered Him, "there remained no strength
in me: for my vigour was turned in me into
corruption, and I retained no strength" (vs. 8).

3) When we meet God, we know and see that He
must increase and we must decrease.

Our own human agenda's must be done away
with. Encounter with God drains our natural
posturing and our natural strength. It shows
us who we are and who God is. In that encounter
we should be, indeed will be, slow to speak.
After that encounter we should speak only out
of our inevitable brokenness at the sight of a
Holy God.

When we receive a word it must be with
fear of God and trembling. We must know that
that word is for God's purposes and we must
handle it ever so carefully. We must let
the Word examine our motivations. Are our
prophecies for God or for ourselves? Why
are we giving them? Are we in align with
God's purposes or looking to appear spiritual
or to market "the word" with books,
tapes, cd's and guest ap pearances?

We have become too familiar with God and
yet we do not know Him at all. Who is
visiting us? A god of our own minds,
conjured up by our own lusts? a fairy
tale, a fantasy, a virtual
but man-made "reality"?

When you have encountered God, you will
know it, even it He comes to you in a
still, small Voice. There is really no
mistaking the Living and True One, and
yet our hearts are deceitfully wicked and we
are easily led astray.

Who is the man or woman God comes to? And
Who is this God who comes to him? This is
no time for us to be deceived. Jesus warns
us that in the last days false christs will
come. Need they be all external ones? Cannot
false Christ's present themselves to the
mind or be created by our minds? Can another
Jesus be visiting me, even one I have
made myself?

God never changes. He is always and eternally
the God of Holiness, full of Truth, crowned
with righteousness. In His Presence all
darkness must flee away. If you think you
are in God's presence and do not see that
you are naked and blind and hopelessly lost
without Him, then you are not in God's
presence but in a blinding fog.

Encounter with God demands change, creates
change, IS change. And the change is one
of godly, spiritual fruit issuing forth from
a root of holiness. If we want change we
should start here. We cannot meet God and
be the same. If we are, we have to ask, "Who
is visiting us?" or "Who are we visiting?"

The one who spoke to Daniel revealed some of
the reasons that God was coming to Daniel. It
was because Daniel had sought God, had chastened
himself, had sought to understand. "The eyes
of the Lord roam to and fro upon the earth
looking" for such people. But why does it seem
that the Lord's eyes have to look far and wide
for such ones? It appears that there are not so
many of them that they can be found everywhere
that the eye, even the eye of God, looks.

God looks for those who are in line with His
purpose and are about what He is about. Any
other agenda but the eternal purpose of God
has within it the DNA of error and will bear
the deformed child of corrupted human flesh.

We will make mistakes as we walk along and
try to hear God, but there are real reasons
why we make mistakes, and real reasons why
those mistakes then can harden into recalcitrant,
continuous error, and then into godlessness,
and then we are given over completely to deception.

Do not despise prophecy but bear in mind
this balancing thought: "Be not rash with
your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty
to utter any thing before God: for God is in
heaven, and you on earth: therefore let
your words be few." (Eccl 5:2). If you have
a word, weigh it, and let God weigh you.

Many spirits have gone out in the world and
there is much deception. Let us not
be deceived, nor contribute to another's
deception. Test the spirits (I John 4:1).
We must ask ourselves, "Who is visiting us?"



Bible study Book of Daniel
Book of Daniel
Daniel 10
false prophecy
deception
current events
elections
knowing God
false prophets
P.T. Forsyth
end-times deception

The Coming Elections and the Spirit of the Age: It All Changes Next Tuesday

"And the word of the LORD came unto me the
second time, saying, What seest thou? And
I said, I see a seething pot; and the face
thereof is toward the north." (Jeremiah 1:13)

As followers of Jesus it is really not our place
to be caught up in politics. Ours is a heavenly
country in a place called the Kingdom of God.
As much as we can we should be good citizens,
but we owe our final allegiance to God.

Politics, to me, is odious. I think Jesus
thought so, too. But I write about this
upcoming election because it really is a
historic election. It is not about Democrats
and Republicans and their differences--if you
camp there you fail to see the point. It's about
weltanschauung and zeitgeist.

Say what?

Weltanschauung is the German term
for "world view" and "zeitgeist" is
a German term meaning "the spirit of the age."
Every so often things reach a stage of
critical change. Kingdoms rise and fall.
In the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar has a
vision of the kingdoms of this world rising
and falling, his included. They give way to
the glorious kingdom of our Lord and of
His Christ! His Kingdom comes and smashes
all lesser ones others to pieces. A "Stone
not cut from hand" comes out of the mountain
and breaks all the other kingdoms.
Daniel said, "the dream is certain
and its interpretation sure" (Daniel 2:45).
The plan and purpose of God are indestructible
and imperishable.

In this election much has been paraded
forth about the need for change. Indeed!
But what we have here is change in its
most elemental form: we have a clash
of "weltenschauung" and a looming
fluctuation in the "zeitgeist."

This election is not just about policy
changes, it is about conflicting world
views. It is not about this policy on one
hand, and that one on the other, but a
change in zeitgeist, the very spirit
of the age. It is scarily obvious that
people, our "good' American people, are
changing what they think and what they
value. It is not about Republicans
deciding to be Democrats, please look
underneath and beyond that, but an entire
change in what we see as important: how things
should be, what truth is.

Decades of unbiblical and twisted thinking
have lead to this: God letting us choose
our king and have it our way. We get what
we choose. That is scary. What is scarier
is that in thinking we are choosing the
right thing we can be choosing the tools of
our own destruction. We can think we stand
for truth, and change, and actually be
standing for a lie more deadly than we can
imagine.

I am not writing this article because I
am a Republican or a Democrat. My allegiance
does not lay along political lines. McCain,
too, has issues, and he is a dinosaur: he
is an emblem of the spirit of the previous age
in America. Somehow, that may only be a
half-bad thing. Probably even dinosaurs went
extinct somehow because of the sin of man.
In our seeking to get away from that imperfect
tenor of spirit we turn too quickly to what
appears to be another spirit and fail
to see the implications. New Song, next verse,
same tune, worse trouble.

We choose our man and our man chews us.
We get our man and our man gets us. This
will all unfold in a far worse way
in the already at hand, and not to
future, end-times. The Antichrist is the
spirit of man. 666.

Is Barack Obama the Antichrist? That's
quite a bit for politics to lay on any man!
No, according to Scripture, he was not born in
the right country to qualify for that job! In
most ways he is probably an ordinary person, not
necessarily or consciously disposed to
evil, but simply a post-modern man influenced
by his spiritual and political milieu, perhaps
more easily influenced then he knows. God help
him!

He is not the Antichrist, but, and I say
this without animosity of any sort, he is
probably like what the Antichrist will start
off as. His words reveal him to have a world
view that we have not yet seen in an American
president, but they are timed
with a change in the "spirit of the
age" that is ready to accept what he
stands for. And he most definitely stands
for change. But change of what kind?

Many think that is a good thing. But many,
even Israel, will think that the Antichrist
to come is "a good thing"--a thing of peace
and safety until the real story suddenly and
violently emerges. God wants to rule us in true
peace and safety but we will not have it.
He allows us to choose our king and we
choose that king based on what we value.
A scarier thought I cannot imagine.

I fear that we are not seeing through
the issues to the Issue. America is changing.
It has been changing. It has changed. Its
been years of sometimes hidden, sometimes
blatant change. We can name all the old,
well-worn issues: abortion, prayer in schools,
religious freedom, sexual issues etc. but
even those are indicative of people who
were already not seeing clearly. Perhaps our
time is up, perhaps our season is finished.
If not now, sometime.

America labels herself as a "melting pot"
where everyone can be who they want to be.
The problem is: that is not possible!
Guess what? Conflicting ideologies conflict.
And guess what? Christianity makes some
claims that are exclusive and will
not allow other ideas to be melted
into it. So do other ideologies. You
know what I mean.

So we are really going to be melting
pot, just as the prophet Jeremiah
saw (Jeremiah 1:13) or really, it looks
to be, a melted pot. The "spirit of the age"
is about to change and it will not
be the change born of the Spirit of God.
If you are a Democrat and are reading
this, I am not attacking Barack Obama.
I am just saying that the issues are
bigger than they seem. Obama, like
any of us, is somewhat a product of
the "spirit of the age" that he grew
up in. He is just being what he was
made to be. All of us will, without
Christ, be just what the world and
its spirit makes us to be. And we know
who rules this present world! Unless we
are overtaken by another Spirit: the
Holy Spirit, we are merely pawns of
the devil's plan.

The Holy Spirit only campaigns for Christ.
And Christ is not American. Or Republican.
Or Democratic. The Spirit of Christ's
ticket is one of holiness, and humility,
and Truth. It levels us all under the Cross
of Jesus! The scriptures tell us,
"Be not deceived, whatever a man
sows, that is what he shall reap"
(Gal 6:7). We are set to reap the seeds
of decades upon decade of our choices
built on top of each other. This is not
about one man, but about a nation and why it
chooses what it chooses. It appears to
be too late. I pray it is not.

To citizens of God's Kingdom, residing
in these Untied States, take heart, take
courage, and stand in your place living
and speaking for Christ and Christ alone.
You can change more lives than a posse
of politicians.

elections
American politics
Christianity and politics
the Antichrist
current events
endtime events
McCain & Obama
judgment
Jeremiah 1:13
weltenschauung
zeitgeist

A Compromised Gospel: Seduced by Safety or Sensuality?

A Compromised Gospel: Seduced by Safety or Sensuality?

When the Son of Man comes will He find faith in
the earth? (Luke 18:8)

I have been prayerfully pacing the floors
of my house lately. I know the world apart
from Christ is quite insane. It is the
Church that I am really concerned about.

On one hand I see part of the Church, in an
attempt to present a "reasonable" gospel,
sitting placidly on the shores of safety.
Not wanting to offend modern sensibilities,
they fine-tune all the "static" out
of the hard-to-hear message of Jesus.

"Was I hearing Jesus say, "sell all?"

"Oh, no, Jesus would never say that, He
is too kind and loving. He wants us to
prosper, and get things, not get rid of things."

"Was I hearing Jesus say, "Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand?"

"Oh, no, Jesus would not say that, He
humbly waits for you to notice Him and
need Him just a little bit, so invite Him
in, just a little bit. Give Him a try, like the
test-drive on a new car. If He doesn't suit you,
turn Him back in."

The church of safety is precariously perched
on the word "balanced." It is buffered from
the hard sayings of Jesus by a strong sense of
the importance of "playing safe." In an
extreme world, it reacts against extremes with
the promise of respectability and stability
and "family values", which in America can
degenerate into the children determining what
the family does. It shuns losing control of its
meetings, shuns being really open to the workings
of God, because that is not predictably "safe".
(If you have ever met Him, He is not "a tame Lion.")

Are we inoculating people against receiving
the full gospel? If we get them in the door and
they stay, will they ever go on to hearing, and
then obeying, the meat of the Word and not
the milk? Or has even the milk gone slightly sour?

Churches with this agenda pride themselves in
the presentation of "nice" programs, fun agendas
and great music with a "reasonable" bit of "faith"
thrown in. I wonder if this is exactly the kind
of thing that Jesus wants to vomit up in Revelation 3:16?

Christ calls us to give up fame, family and
fortune if need by. He does not flinch if you,
or your family, or the neighbors are offended by
His Word or if business-as-usual runs off schedule
in the meeting.

We can not usually control what our leaders do.
But we can look at our own hearts for we will
stand before God alone. Is there an unreasonable
amount of safety in your relationship with Jesus?

I am not asking you to behave as some kind of
raving lunatic, as you shall soon read, but I
do ask you, as I ask myself, "Have I played it
too safe?"

For fear of "hurting" you, and then you rejecting
me, have I watered down what I need to say or
do? Do I feel comfortable and satisfied
with my walk with the Lord? (I'm not sure
anyone can ever say a clear-conscienced "yes" to
that.) Am I too uncommitted in my approach to
things that I could easily walk by "a certain
man" attacked and wounded on the road to Jericho
(Luke 10:25-37)? Am I sitting on the fence about
spiritual things? Often we cannot see these things
in ourselves until it is too late. What worries me
is that 10 "Christians" went out to wait for Jesus
in Matthew 25 (1-13). Only 5 are received of Him.

On the other hand I am alarmed at the infiltration
of seemingly unbridled sensuality into sanctuaries
that claim to be the house of God. We have become
such seekers of supernatural experience that we no
longer seem to judge it by scripture. Coming up with
one verse of scripture,taken out of context, is not
judging something by the whole counsel of God.

Corinth is at hand. Segments of the church, segments
who often view themselves to be on the "cutting
edge of what God is doing," are becoming used to
extremely strange manifestations and off-center
prophetic words that they quickly attribute to
the Holy Spirit. One wonders with what standard,
if any, that these signs are being measured by as
they appear to smack loudly of the flesh and not the
Holy Spirit. Is anyone noticing?

Not only is there not much scriptural discernment
about the manifestations but it seems that
the crazier things get, the happier everyone is.
Solomon said, "He who digs a pit will
fall into it, and whoever breaks through a wall
will be bitten by a serpent" (Eccl.10:8). Is a
wall of spiritual licentiousness being broken
through? Many "follow the cloud" looking for
their next fix of "holy ghost goosebumps".

The question is, "Is the cloud they are under
from the Lord or a dust storm of the Enemy?"
Israel followed the cloud also, but they were
a rebellious people left in the desert for
forty years instead of entering quickly into
the Promised Land. God led them in circles
until all but two died in the desert. In the Old
Testament God gave many "prophets" over to their
own delusions (Isaiah 28: 7,8; Ezekiel 13).

Those prone to sensuality measure the success
of their meetings by how much is stirred up,
and often measure their degree of spirituality by
whether they have "been there and done that."
Are we measuring things as spiritual because those
around us see them as "spiritual'? or are we judging
with righteous judgments according to the Word of
God? God is a Spirit: when we are in His Presence
supernatural things will happen for He is supernatural.
But He is a Holy Spirit. A Holy Spirit. A Holy
Spirit. Are you catching my drift?

Jonathan Edwards lamented writing his "Narrative of
the Surprising Work of God, Northampton,
Massachusetts, 1737" in the manner he did. He said
that he made a grave mistake focusing on the the
more sensational manifestations rather than waiting
a few years and measuring the revival by its lasting
fruit.

No doubt, the work of God is always surprising, yet
any work of God is birthed by His holiness, and
bears holy fruit. We as humans may react to
that work in odd ways, with odd reactions, but that
is not a measure of our spirituality but a measure
of our weakness.

Many pagan religions wed sensuality and spirituality.
What should have marked Israel's relationship with
God was a spirit of holiness and purity, but she was
sorely judged for trying to approach God with the
same unbridled sensuality as her pagan neighbors
did with their gods. God smacked it down, as God should.
I am just worried that we don't see the smack coming.
God forbid that He give us over to our flesh.

Above I suggested that, of the ten virgins waiting
for Jesus, five were not invited in. What worries me
on this side of things is that Jesus said that many
people who performed miracles, cast out demons,
worked wonders would also be cast away. He called
them "lawless" (Matthew 7:22,23). Lawless: unbridled,
unable to be led, without discipline, not yoked to
Christ, given over to the flesh and not the Spirit
of God.

"Of whom I tell you weeping, that they are the
enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is
destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose
glory is in their shame..." Philippians 3:18.

I write this not to alarm you, but to provoke
you to examine yourselves to see whether you be
in the faith, for the enemy of our souls would,
as we near the end of all things, seek to deceive
the very elect of God (Matt. 24:24).

There is the old adage, "better safe than sorry":
this is human wisdom, I'm afraid. The only safety
we have is clinging completely to Christ Jesus.
On the one hand we can try to find a safe port,
according to human reason, and miss the boat headed
to the City of God. On the other hand we can mistake
human passions and sensuality for the Spirit of God,
and in so doing, be led far from the holiness
without which no man will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).

One glance at the holiness of God will, as Isaiah
found out, put an end to both a "safe" gospel and
the fleshly carousings of the human heart. Isaiah
was stopped in his tracks at the sight of a holy
God. May we see Him and be likewise transformed
by a coal from His altar. This is our only hope.

Pray for the Church.

Luke 18:8
a compromised gospel
false signs and wonders
Revelation 3:16
Matthew 24:24
heresy
false prophets
charismatic
Jonathan Edwards