Prophetic Insights
Prayer Works
"And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth; and there were peals of thunder, voices, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake." (Rev 8.3-5)
This text ought to be of the greatest interest and assistance to all those who are genuinely "waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God". (2 Pe 3.12) In it a description of a preparatory, prophetic season (Trumpets) is introduced by a quite remarkable unveiling of the true nature and dynamic of prayer. During this prophetic interval, prayer will be the key to life on earth. And this passage of Scripture contains the key to prayer.
As He has already kept and fulfilled Israel's Feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, First fruits and Pentecost, so now Christ our Lord is keeping Trumpets. (See "Faithful is He" 31/10/11) This is a period when everything is altogether about preparing for His Return. It is a time when the Lord Jesus is systematically and relentlessly disturbing His beloved (both Church and Israel) into wakefulness concerning the impending "great and terrible day of the Lord", and His enthronement on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
"The day comes, burning like and oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble...But for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings." (Mal 4.1-2)
1) Upon reaching heaven, our prayers are "processed" by an angel. I suppose some Believers might be up-ended by this? (I am delighted!) What some do by way of demonstrating their spiritual athleticism and superiority, seems terribly important to them. It is a perennial affliction for the Church. There is ever a delicate (and indecipherable) connection in the Christian life between God's sovereignty and our responsibility. If this balance is dishonoured and upset, "faith" appears "out of whack", a caricature...even grotesque! Whatever the "ratios" might be, for the proportions to ring true biblically, I am sure that what God does must always outweigh what we can do. He is the great Initiator...we are the respondents (especially when it comes to prayer)! As the great battle-cry of the 16th C Reformation states,
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God - not because of works, lest any man should boast." (Eph 2.8-9)
"You stand fast only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe." (Ro 11.20)
It is precisely the sense of falling-short in prayer (that gulf between the white-hot cry of our hearts and its pitiful, outward expression!) which is designed for our blessing. It is the holy "engine" which undoes all of our fatuous pride in what we can do, and sends us crashing down into the ground, upon our faces.
What an incredible and joyous prospect. Our poverty-stricken prayers limp into Heaven, there to be gathered up by the angel of God who is appointed to stand at "the golden altar before the throne". Such a divine provision absolutely releases us to say with the utmost confidence, "Our Almighty God is so much more willing to obtain our prayers, than we will ever be to pray."
"We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us." (Ro 8.26)
2) The holy angel gathers up our earthly adoration and supplications, and transforms them into something Heavenly...something fitting and capable of rising before the face of God.
"Let my prayer be counted as incense before thee." (Ps 141.2)
The angel at the golden altar has "much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints". Ah, the extravagant grace of the Lord. Our poor, little prayers are mixed up with (not a little, or a bit, or some) incense. How much? Heaps, copious amounts, more than is really necessary. And incense is powerful and explosive stuff. You only need a pinch to fill a room with its smoke very quickly indeed.
And here's the point. Do our prayers carry the clouds of incense up before God? Or do the great, billowing, swirling clouds of incense lift our frail worship and intercession into the ears of the Lord? Of course, it is the grace He supplies that does the job, accomplishes the mission, completes the task.
But there is yet more achieved by God's incense than the mechanics of elevation. As well as "sweet spices", incense (according to the Exodus 30.34 prescription) was to be "seasoned with salt, pure and holy". Salt, in the days of the Bible's creation, was used to cleanse and purify. Not only does the mingling of His incense and our prayers carry our hearts to God, it also ensures that our praise and our petitions have been "washed" and are clean...deserving to be listened to.
"Elisha went to the spring of (bad) water and threw salt in it, and said, 'Thus says the Lord, I have made this water wholesome.' " (2 Ki 2.21)
The luminous, modern-day martyr, Edith Stein (1891-1942, Germany), has said that "prayer is the highest achievement of which the human person is capable". To savour this truth to the fullest, we have to be simultaneously crushed by our noblest work falling short, and yet exultant that God Himself speeds and sanctifies these bridges over the abyss between earth and Heaven.
3) Not only does Revelation 8.3-5 unveil the usually hidden "mechanics" of our prayers being lifted to God, it also vividly discloses how our requests recoil as His reply...answered prayer.
"In the day of my trouble I call on you, for you answer me." (Ps 86.7)
"They cried to the Lord, and he answered them." (Ps 99.6)
The angel's ministry at the golden altar in Heaven is a single event, made up of two distinct but vitally linked actions. In the first, he gathers, purifies and presents our prayers to the Lord on the Throne. In the second, he throws, casts and hurls God's answers into the earth as "peals of thunder, voices, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake".
Remember that this period of salvation-history is one of great tribulation and distress, running neck-and-neck with greater salvation. Days of fury and glory; catastrophe and great awakening. Therefore, to know that our prayers are in safe hands, and that His answers will literally have earth-shaking impact, is gloriously encouraging and highly motivating for us to persevere in prayer. When the Lamb at the centre (the Throne) of the centre (Heaven) of the Cosmos answers us with "peals of thunder, voices, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.",
a) He replies with His Presence.
"There were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God." (Ex 19.16-17)
"Repent...that times of refreshing (revival and reformation) may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ." (Ac 3.19-20)
b) He replies with the authority of His Throne; His will is "done, on earth as it is in heaven". (Mt 6.10)
"From the throne issues flashes of lightning, and voices and peals of thunder." (Rev 4.5)
"If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons then the kingdom of God has come upon you." (Lk 11.20)
c) He replies with His Glory.
"The ark of his covenant was seen within his temple (in heaven); and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail." (Rev 11.19)
"Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house...and when (they) came out...a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord." (1 Ki 8.6-11)
"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." (Ro 8.18)
d) He replies with His judgement.
"The seventh angel poured his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, 'It is done!' And there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake." (Rev 16.17-18)
Under the New Covenant, the judgement of God is from the hand of "the Holy One, Whose wrath we have provoked" and who "became man...to bear this wrath himself in our place". (1) And yet, this wrath (exasperated divine love!) does finally fall upon the perpetually recalcitrant. It is very important that this does happen, as it is His pledge to the Church of God's complete faithfulness and absolute justice. Just as the wrath of the disobedient has been poured out against Believers through the ages; at the End, divine justice must cut down those who have refused to shelter beneath the spilled Blood and life of The Beloved. In spite of the fullness of Heaven's mercy and grace granted them, they have at the finish refused to restore their hearts to their Maker and Redeemer.
(Let the reader beware, and not join those who daily bay for the blood of judgement to run freely. The true prophet is exactly like Micah of Moresheth, who having predicted catastrophic chastening for the People of God, cried out, "Because of this I will mourn and lament. To show my sorrow, I will walk around barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and wail like an ostrich. Samaria's wounds cannot be healed, and Judah is about to suffer in the same way; destruction has reached the gates of Jerusalem itself, where my people live." 1.8-9)
The prayers of the saints and martyrs of the Last Church will aim above all else to lavish praise and thanksgiving and worship upon the approaching King. There is a sense in which they need be quite unconcerned about the efficacy of their words and the details of their own needs. Every cry and phrase will be gathered up and perfected by that other angel at Heaven's "altar with a golden censer". Then that very same prayer (even the flimsiest, most abject and pitiful) will "re-enter history with incalculable effects. Our earth is shaken daily by it"! (2)
"For from him and through him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen." (Ro 11.36)
(1) "Credo" by Dr. Karl Barth (Wipf & Stock, USA, 2005).
(2) "Reversed Thunder" by Eugene H. Peterson (HarperOne, USA, 1991)
God's only Son
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called...mighty God." (Isa 9.6)
"In Him (Christ, Jesus, the Lord) there is continuously and permanently at home all the fullness of absolute deity in bodily fashion." (Col 2.9 Wuest's NT)
"The Father, ineffable (too great for description in words) by His very nature, from His own substance has begotten the Son ineffably; but He has begotten nothing except what He is Himself: God has begotten God." (Bruno of Cologne, 11th C) (1)
The Church's power to withstand and overcome the comprehensive Last Days' blitzkrieg of antichrist (2) , will be in direct proportion to the integrity of its belief concerning the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In 1935, prophesying into the Fascist-Nazi hurricane of iniquity then flooding Europe, the consummate, Reformed divine, Karl Barth (1886-1968, Switzerland), warned that "Christian faith stands or falls once and for all with the fact that God and God alone is its object."
During WW1, Barth became disillusioned by the way in which an extensively theologically "liberal" Church had so eagerly "jumped into bed" with the cant and violence of German ultra-nationalism. Later he was to become a leader of Christian resistance to Hitler's antichrist seduction and "destruction" of the German Church. He was barred from all university teaching and chose "exile" in May of 1935.
Focusing his scholarly and prophetical attention upon the second article of The Apostles' Creed, ("I believe in...Jesus Christ, His only Son"), Barth spoke of a "catastrophe" in German Protestantism as the result of the three words, "His (God's) only Son", becoming "lost...amongst a chaos of reinterpretations designed to make them innocuous."
For him these three crucial words of the Creed place Jesus "in the closest relationship, indeed in unity, with God himself...here we are told, if we only rightly understand that He (the Creator) Himself is creature too, that He is not only Lord of our existence, but that He is here with us and like us...the Holy One makes his dwelling here among sinners to be the sinners' Saviour is again no lesser, no other than the eternal God Himself."
It is quite clear to me (given the timing of this message) that for Karl Barth the Church's power or failure to resist evil (in every one of its manifestations...both overt and covert!) relates immediately, directly and proportionally to its adequate or inadequate view of the relationship of the Father and the Son. In this regard, how might we ("upon whom the end of the ages (world) has come" - 1 Co 10.11) be situated? In a Western, Protestant Church awash in trinitarian "agnosticism", is there just cause for satisfaction or complacency on our part? Have we actually responded with remedy to Barth's warning (in the context of the devil's subjugation of "Christian" Europe) to "evangelical churches, and especially to the theological faculties of other lands, where, so far as trinitarian dogma is concerned, no better ways (than German Protestantism) are being trodden"?
If a person rejects the biblical doctrine that "Jesus Christ is God's Son" - in terms of The Apostles' Creed (3) - then, according to Dr. Barth, that one denies "the whole revelation of God and (that) all reconciliation between God and man is contained in Him".
"If one then, in spite of that, speaks of 'faith' in Jesus Christ, then one believes in an intermediate being."
The consequence of this is, "one is really pursuing metaphysics (4)". Such a person, says Karl Barth, "has already secretly lapsed from the Christian faith into polytheism which will forthwith mature into further fruits in setting up of a special God-Father faith and a special Creator faith, and in the assertion of special spiritual revelations."
Remember, Dr. Barth's criticisms, warnings and predictions are not dispassionate; neither academic speculations nor ethereal ponderings. They are the sober and anxious instruction of a mature and prominent Christian leader, witnessing His Church and his Civilisation being progressively over-run by hell and the demonic.
He continues, "If God had not become a man (according to the Creed)...then everything we could conceive and say to ourselves about God (Father and Holy Spirit), would hang in the air as arbitrarily, as mistakenly and as misleadingly, as the corresponding ideas which, in the long run, have been fashioned about God and man in all religions and cosmic speculations...If it can appear to us almost impossible that the Creator became creature, it must appear to us absolutely impossible that the Holy One, Whose burning wrath we have evoked, became man, in order, in spite of everything, to befriend us."
The Church of God is that which is founded upon our Lord Jesus Christ, "His only Son",
" 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus answered him...'flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven...on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death (gates of hell, powers of the underworld) shall not prevail against it.' " (Mt 16.15-18)
Only this Church can supply "real consolation and real instruction," says Dr. Barth. If "the assembly of lost and rescued sinners will come less and less to be built by this proclamation...how could it be otherwise than that error at a crucial point makes it utterly impotent?"
I believe that this prophet's warning-predictions have now been fulfilled and so are for us today a double alarm and admonition. You do not have to travel too far or too wide to hear from pulpits and podiums today the following:
(1) Proclamations of God being "Our Father" in a "Trinity" which is manifestly hierarchical and which relegates Jesus to a humanly-understood (and not by revelation) concept of Son-ship. This actually diminishes and demotes Jesus to the status of "an intermediate being". Some teachers go so far as to portray trust in Christ as provisional and childish...urging their hearers to progress on into the maturity of an adult faith in "Father God".
For any declaration of The Gospel to be authentic, soul-saving and life-changing, it has to be about Jesus Christ, God's only Son. It has to be the Good News (in the words of Barth) that "the Holy One, Whose wrath we have provoked, became man, in order, in spite of everything, to befriend us, to bear this wrath Himself in our place, accordingly to suffer in our place His own burning wrath, to give satisfaction Himself in our place, in order in that way to be our God...He Himself, directly and personally our Prophet, Priest and King."
This is not an academic exercise or indulgence in theological navel-gazing. My goal here (in the context of the promised great tribulation of the End Times) is to discover whether or not the structure and fabric of our faith, is biblically substantial and therefore sufficient to repulse the demonic firepower which will be blasted into us by the antichrist. Belonging to this or that "apostolic" movement or the biggest church in town; praying night-and-day in tongues; being regularly "caught up to the third heaven"...is just not going to "cut the mustard"! Because,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God...on this rock I will build my church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it." (Mt 16.15-18)
Through His victory on The Cross, God's only Son wonderfully paved the way for relationship with God our Father. However, He Himself is that "way"!
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." (Jn 14.6)
"He who has the Son has life, he who has not the Son of God has not life...We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols." (1 Jn 5.12 & 20-21)
(2) Pulpiteers and church leaders are increasingly appealing to extra-biblical "revelation" for their authority. The wonderful, present-day restoration to the Church of the Holy Spirit's Person, Presence and Gifts is now degenerating (in some quarters) into "the assertion of special spiritual revelations" (apostolic?)...an awful fulfillment of Karl Barth's 1935 premonition.
As with the stumble into heretical over-emphasis of God's Fatherhood because of a denial of his Son-ship, this trend is further evidence of Jesus being accorded that diminished and unbiblical status of "an intermediate being". (Or, as Dr. Barth has elsewhere described, "A divine intermediate being subordinate to God".)
The appeal to or "assertion of special spiritual revelations" is heretically to over-magnify God being Spirit (Jn 4.24) through the loss (denial?) of the true significance of His Son-ship. Tragically, when we overthrow the Bible as the judge and benchmark to authenticate every direct communication from God, it is because we have already denied and dethroned The Word, of Whom it is written,
"These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled." (Lk 24.44)
" 'Lo, I have come to do your will, O God,' as it is written of me in the roll of the book." (Heb 10.7)
The setting of personal revelation over The Word and the Bible takes place either through childish ignorance or independence, or ( worse still) because the Lord Jesus Christ is not received and believed on as God's "only Son"! He is not therefore trusted to be the sole conduit of all Light and Truth, by those who do not worship Him as God.
The Reformation of the Church in Scotland during the 16th C remained "on track" in the face of murderously ferocious opposition from the devil, flesh and world. This was in large measure due to the purity of doctrine and vision of Reformers such as John Knox (1514-72) who insisted, "Believe God, that plainly speaketh in His Word. And further than the Word teacheth you, you neither believe the one nor the other."
Likewise, his Genevan "brother" (the teacher of teachers), John Calvin, who declared, "Where we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults."
I beseech you in the name of God's "only Son" to examine your own mind and heart in this regard and along these very lines. There is significantly more at stake here than your own personal salvation or the "success" of your ministry or church! At issue here is the Church's authority and power to withstand antichrist during these last of the Last Days...immediately before that "great and terrible day" of the Son's enthronement on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
During the 30s and 40s of the last century, "the bottomless pit" was opened beneath Germany and antichrist unleashed the dogs of war and hell across Europe. (5) During the infamous 900-day Siege of Leningrad, the German Army pursued a "racially motivated starvation policy". In its quest for "living space" for the "1000 Year Reich", Hitler's Germany did not quibble over the genocide of one third of that city's population...largely through starvation. The ultimate Nazi goal had been the removal of Leningrad (people and buildings) off the map.
Our time is up! We need to stop "fop-doodling" around over such matters! It was the day-before-yesterday when we who are the Body of Christ should have begun to consider with the utmost gravity, that according to our brother and prophet, Karl Barth, "the ground out of which (the Church) has sprung and out of which alone it is able to live, is the admittedly rigid and uncompromising recognition that no one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him (Mt 11.27)."
"Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming...This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses (acknowledges) the Son has the Father also." (1 Jn 2.18, 22-23)
NOTE: This essay contains brief quotes from Dr. Karl Barth, made by him during a series of weekend lectures he delivered in Holland on The Apostles' Creed, between early February and the end of March, 1935. They have been repeatedly published under the title "Credo" ('I Believe'). This book is currently available through the publishers "Wipf & Stock" (USA), at www.wipfandstock.com/store/Credo.
(1) Bruno of Cologne (1030-1100) was a brilliant church administrator and university teacher. In his middle years he withdrew from public life to devote himself completely to prayer, and thus became the Founder of the 1000-year-old contemplative movement, the "Carthusians".
(2) The "antichrist" (according to Scottish NT scholar, Dr. William Barclay, 1907-78) is not only the "one who is opposed to Christ", but also the "one who seeks to put himself in the place of Christ". He is as much a usurper as an opposer.
(3) Formulated approximately 50 years after the last NT writings.
(4) "Theoretical philosophy of being and knowing, based on abstract general reasoning." (The Concise Oxford Dictionary)
(5) I am not saying here that the average German soldier was sub-human or demon possessed. However, it is a matter of record that many later testified that after Hitler was defeated, they felt they had woken from a dream or a trance.
The Seven Stars
"And he had in his right hand seven stars...The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches." (Rev 1.16 & 20)
The Revelation is the message from Israel's Messiah and the Church's Head to His beloved Flock in a time of great tribulation. It is therefore of paramount importance in these last of the Last Days...pre-eminently as The Revelation of Jesus Himself. Any attempt to understand such things as many-coloured horses, sea and earth beasts, and particular combinations of numbers will be doomed to distortion and delusion...unless viewed (and brought into acute and accurate focus), first-of-all through The Revelation of who He truly is.
In chapter one, Jesus is revealed "in the midst" of the seven churches; which is to say that we "see" Him personally present to each and every gathering and assembly to and for Him throughout this Grace Age. And how do we see Him so present?
Well, we "see" Him as "the Son of man" (Da 7.13-14), Heaven's King whose "kingdom shall not be destroyed" on earth, and our "great high priest". (Heb 4.14)
But for the specific purpose of this essay, let us observe that "in his right hand" are the seven "angels of the seven churches"!
(1) "In his right hand".
According to Spiros Zodhiates (editor of the NAS 'Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible'), "a person of high rank who puts anyone on his right hand gives him equal honour with himself and recognizes him as of equal dignity."
"(King Solomon) caused a seat to be set for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand." (1 Ki 2.19)
"Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God." (Lk 22.69)
"Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." (Ac 7.56)
Therefore, these "seven" persons are granted by the Lord Jesus Christ "the same honour and dignity" as that accorded Him by the "seven" churches...because of their core and absolute calling to represent and act on behalf of Almighty God.
"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me." (Mt 10.40)
(2) "The angels of the seven churches".
"Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire...ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." (Heb 1.7 & 14)
According to Daniel (10.13 & 21, 12.1) the arch- or chief angel, Michael specifically "has charge, stands guard, protects" the People of Israel. Hence the mysterious event of (literally) acting as the national leader's bodyguard, recorded in Jude 9, "But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses...said, 'The Lord rebuke you.' "
(Note: It was the Lord himself who buried Moses "in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor". Thus, "no man knows the place of his burial to this day." Deuteronomy 34.6 Also, Michael addresses the devil precisely and exactly along the same lines and employing the same words that God uses in His Zechariah 3.2 confrontation with the evil one, "The Lord rebuke you, O satan!" The angel's obedience is perfect down to the most minute detail.)
Thus we may safely say that God appoints his servants, the holy angels, to take spiritual responsibility for entire nations. And further, we can be confident that He also assigns them to care for His People, individually.
"See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." (Mt 18.10)
"And Peter came to himself, and said, 'Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me...(Rhoda) ran in and told that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, 'You are mad.' But she insisted that it was so. They said, 'It is his angel!' " (Ac 12.11 & 13-15)
Therefore, in the context of the New (fulfilled) Covenant, it is not a great stretch at all to believe joyfully and confidently that local churches are each allotted His "servants made of flaming fire"! Hence, every one of the seven Heavenly messages to each of Revelation's seven churches begins,
"To the angel of the church write."
The Lord Jesus Christ honours each one of his angelic servants by addressing them personally and thus keeping them fully in-the-loop, so far as His dealings with every local congregation are concerned. We would all do very well to likewise honour them, by acknowledging their role and expressing gratitude for their completely divine and unstinting toil and care for us.
Immediately before the 2nd Coming, the Church, Israel and this world are going to be enveloped in the great tribulation (pressure) of the final clash of kingdoms. In his doomed struggle for supremacy the devil will use a particularly subtle and lethal device against God's People...isolation and disconnection. By separating local church from local church (and the Church from Israel), he will seek to weaken them, thus rendering us vulnerable to all-out demonic attack and injury. Belonging to this or that denomination, movement or organisation (no matter how large or efficient or "glittering") will not be sufficient answer or remedy for this hellish stratagem. It was employed against the Church in Nazi Germany to very great effect. The Confessing (resisting) Church quite quickly learned that the antidote was the fostering of authentic, "organic" fellowship and community, as widely and as deeply as possible.
The supernatural leadership of your church's angel in Jesus' Name (so closely linked 24/7 to Heaven's throne and its surrounding "living creatures, elders and many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands"), is not merely going to helpful. It will mean and make the difference between victory and defeat, success or oblivion.
(3) "The messengers of the seven churches".
The Bible's word "angel" (in both Testaments) means "messenger" and "agent".
"This is he (John the Baptist) of whom it is written, 'Behold, I send my messenger (angel) before your face, who shall prepare your way before you.' " (Mt 11.10)
"And he (Jesus) sent messengers (angels) ahead of him...to make ready for him." (Lk 9.52)
I believe that today there are some, particular apostles and prophets who are sent as messengers to specific local churches (and are received as such by the elders). But they have not been dispatched upon their mission by another congregation or collection of churches...they have been sent by Jesus, and have come out of "his right hand"!
"But let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong (raised up) for yourself." (Ps 80.17)
These apostolic and prophetic persons are neither better nor superior...but they are very different. As agents of His "right hand" they exist and are empowered to serve God alone, and as He is in Himself. Their perspectives, messages and prophecies are totally and blatantly biased towards the Kingdom of Heaven alone. Their terrible jealousy and prejudice for the "I AM WHO I AM" does not in fact make them awkward or difficult...but completely indispensable, because they are also networking and connecting "machines". They'll hook up and ally themselves unequivocally with absolutely anything and everyone bearing the "marks of Jesus" (Gal 6.17), or exuding the fragrance of the approaching King. (SS 3.6)
The sign or brand on your church's front door will neither attract nor deflect them.
For those who are busily and greedily constructing their own empires, such "visitors" might appear menacing and even destructive. But for authentic End Times' assemblies, these earthly "angels" will bring and facilitate meaningful relationships with the whole Body of Christ...as well as un-franchised, fresh "meat" and "bread", as well as mature and strong "wine"!
There has ever been a certain amount of unhealthy and unhelpful tension between such "visitors" and local church elders and leaders. In his third letter, the Apostle John talks about relating aright to "strangers (not local) who are workers in the truth and have accepted nothing from the heathen"! John chides a certain Diotrephes "who likes to put himself first" and "does not acknowledge (apostolic) authority" when "he refuses himself to welcome the brethren, and also stops those who want to welcome them and puts them out of the church"!
Unravelling this situation, the redoubtable professor of divinity, William Barclay (1907-78, Scotland), points out that the infant Christian Movement had a real problem with "wandering prophets and preachers" because "their position was one which was singularly liable to abuse."
"Some," according to Doctor Barclay, "were nothing better than clever and plausible rogues who had found an easy way of making a comfortable living."
Nevertheless, he says, the controversy addressed in 3 John is "no storm in a tea-cup. This was a fundamental cleavage. It was the clash between local and itinerant ministry." It is now, and has always been, terrifically important that "the settled ministry and the local elders...run their own congregation" (to use William Barclay's terms). But this arrangement will go awry and off-key if a biblical balance is overthrown and "visitors" from further afield (both geographically and theologically) are stereotyped as little more than "dangerous intruders", and thereby marginalised and even excluded.
As with supernatural angels assigned to local churches, so too these natural, apostolic and prophetic messengers (angels) deserve to be honoured by our "acknowledging their role and expressing gratitude for their divine toil and care for us"!
It is an awesome and massively consoling revelation to "see" our mighty King and Saviour "in the midst" of His People, stormed-tossed and wave-smashed in great tribulation. But what an act of grossest ignorance and stupendous folly it would be, if we were to abhor and scorn these most precious Gifts from His right hand.
"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death." (Rev 2.11)
"Your right hand supported me, and your help made me great." (Ps 18.35)
"As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with victory." (Ps 48.10)
"O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things! His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory." (Ps 98.1)
Faithful is He
The festal celebrations given to Israel by God (Lev 23), are very much more than religious memorials and traditions. They are massive testimony to the Lord's absolute faithfulness, and incredibly powerful, contemporary prophecy.
In Moses' day, God gave His People seven "appointed feasts of the Lord which you shall proclaim as holy convocations." (v2) They are,
1) Passover (14/1 according to the Jewish calendar)
2) Unleavened Bread (15-21/1)
3) Firsts Fruits (16/1)
4) Pentecost (6/3)
5) Trumpets (1/7)
6) Atonement (10/7)
7) Tabernacles (15-21/7)
In the crudest outline possible, God's beloved Jewish People observe and celebrate,
1) Passover (Pesach).
Their miraculous deliverance from slavery and national exodus from Egypt.
2) Unleavened Bread.
The annual spring-clean, to ensure that every home is a leaven or yeast-free zone...recalling The Exodus night's hasty flight.
3) First Fruits.
The presentation to the Lord with gratitude of the earliest fruit, at the very beginning of harvest time. (I.e. the new corn.)
4) Pentecost (Shavuot).
Thanksgiving for the general harvest in full-swing, and for God's gift to Israel of the Law, atop Sinai.
5) Trumpets (Rosh Hashana).
A season routinely punctuated by trumpet blasts, to wake up the Jewish People to prepare for the great and solemn Day of Atonement. The time to ponder being "brought to judgement before the supreme King of kings."
(The first day of Trumpets is also the Jewish New Year. The approach of the End, is signalled by the beginning of the new?)
6) Atonement (Yom Kippur).
The "holiest" day of all; the one and only day of the year (while the Temple stood and functioned in Jerusalem) when Israel's high priest entered the holy of holies to pray and "wipe the slate clean". (Heb 9.7)
7) Tabernacles (Sukkot).
The seventh and final feast, lasting seven days. Jewish People living outdoors in little, temporary huts, celebrating their journey, safely into the Promised Land, and the complete ingathering of the summer's harvest (of vine and tree).
When the Lord Jesus Christ said, "I have not come to abolish (the law and the prophets) but to fulfill them" (Mt 5.17), He meant that He would keep and complete each of God's "appointed times" (divine appointments), made in every one of these seven feasts. Thus, it is said,
"These (festivals) are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ." (Col 2.17)
("These were but shadows cast by future events...the One foreshadowed is Christ.")
Therefore, we ought not to be even slightly surprised nor amazed when the Bible tells us,
A) That the Lamb of God kept Pesach with His disciples "on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the PASSOVER lamb"; then, he went out to die, and to shed His precious blood for us, "like that of a lamb without blemish or spot". (Mk 14.12, 1 Pe 1.19)
And thus Paul is able to give to us his apostolic testimony that, "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Co 5.7), thereby both keeping and fulfilling the feast and God's divine appointment.
B) Immediately before His death on the Cross to purge and to take "away the sin of the world", Jesus took UNLEAVENED bread, and "blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body." (Jn 1.29, Mt 26.26)
Hence Paul could exhort the Church at Corinth to "cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened...Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival (Passover), not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Co 5.7-8)
C) He who laid down his life for us, took it up again "on the third day" (Lk 24.46)...or FIRST FRUITS. As Israel looked expectantly for evidence of a new harvest coming out of the ground, the Lord Jesus Christ rose up "from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Co 15.20)
D) Fifty days later (7x7 days), Jerusalem was awash with Jewish pilgrims from all over "the world", come to celebrate the gift of the Torah "from above", and harvest time too.
We ought not to marvel that it was at this moment, "when the day of PENTECOST had come...they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." (Ac 2.1-4)
At the very hour when Jerusalem rejoiced over the gift of the Law, the Law-incarnate "exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit...poured out this, which you see and hear." (Ac 2.33)
Thus, God's ways with Israel and all men were forever revolutionized, "You are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." (2 Co 3.3)
(Note: "There were added that day - Pentecost - about three thousand souls." Harvest time, to be sure!)
And just as these four fulfilled Feasts are towering testimony to God's unshakeable faithfulness, so the remaining three grant us unerringly accurate, prophetic insight and information.
E) Jesus Himself is even now keeping TRUMPETS; a season during which He faithfully disturbs us into an ever-deepening and serious-minded consciousness that history is now entirely and altogether about preparing for the Return of the King.
Prophecy is Him speaking..."a loud voice like a trumpet"; making sure we hear clearly what's on His heart and in His mind...for "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy"! (Rev 1.10 & 4.1, 19.10)
During the past 30 plus years, there has been an impressive and concerted "awakening" to the importance and seriousness of the Church's prophetic role and responsibility. Tragically some of this restoration's fruit has been lost or dissipated by religious and human lust for fame, fortune and "feel-good". Nevertheless, the Lord has been faithful and keeps this Feast, ensuring the "trumpets" are blown, and shall continue to be heard for our discombobulation, right up and into The Day.
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days...they will see the Son of man coming...he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect." (Mt 24.29-31)
"We shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." (1 Co 15.51-52, 1 Th 4.16)
"Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them...Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.' " (Rev 8.2, 11.15)
F) King Jesus will keep the Feast of ATONEMENT on an actual Yom Kippur, when as our high priestly Sovereign, He will "enter" the site of the Jerusalem Temple's holy of holies, and there be enthroned! On that Day "all Israel will be saved", and the Head and the Body will be physically united...the ultimate at-one-ment!
"The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight...he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver...Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing." (Mal 3.1-4)
"It shall come to pass in the latter days...out of Zion shall go forth the law...He shall judge between nations...neither shall they learn war any more." (Isa 2.1-4)
G) Our enthroned King will keep TABERNACLES, when from His Throne on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, He reigns over all the nations on earth for a period of "1000 years"!
"The Lord will be King over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name...Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles." (Zec 14.9 &16, Eze 37.24-28)
With His holy sceptre, King Jesus will punish rebellion and reward obedience, thus putting all that has been wrong with this sin-soaked world, right!
"I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill...I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Ps 2.6-9)
"Then a throne will be established in steadfast love and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness." (Isa 16.5, Ac 15.16-17)
God our Messiah has already unequivocally and historically "kept" four of the seven Feasts. He is going to "keep" the remaining three.
"He who calls you is faithful, and he will do it." (1 Th 5.24
The Big Picture
It is a woeful and pathetic sight, watching so called seers scratching about in the dust of today's headlines, in search of prophetic evidence concerning the 2nd Coming. Ironically their futile and delusional toil is exercised in the immense shadows of the greatest signs pointing to His Parousia, that God has ever, and will ever give to the Church and history.
It defies any kind of intelligence to actually believe and hold to the view that God will delay alerting His People to this Age-ending and Age-beginning event, until the very "last" minute. How shattering that it may yet be recorded of the Last Generations,
"We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long." (Ps 74.9)
The following signs and witnesses have already been supplied by Heaven, that these are indeed the last of the Last Days, and the end of the End Times:
(1) The Reformation.
The Church was permitted to lie largely undisturbed by change, from the time of its 4th C unholy "marriage" to the State (under the Roman Emperor Constantine), until the 16th C. In every one of those intervening centuries, there were present in God's House men and women of outstanding faith, holiness and learning, through whom the Lord profoundly impacted society with the Gospel. (E.g. Bruno of Cologne and Francis of Assisi.)
Nevertheless, its antique "furniture" appeared immovable and slowly lost its original shape and definition beneath mounting layers of the "dust" of religious dogma, tradition and culture. Then during the 1500s in Europe, God hurled into our dozing midst successive thunderbolts and whirlwinds...Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, et al! In a certain sense, it seemed as if all that could move was shifted; all that could change, was altered. And this Reformation of what had been deformed over a period of close to a millennium and a half, continued on through the 17th to the 20th C...and persists today. (1)
This "restoration" (or recovery) of what has been "lost", is itself the fulfillment of a singularly vital, prophetic key to the Return of the Lord Jesus, to be Israel's Messiah and the whole world's Redeemer-King.
"That he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive (retain) until the time for establishing (the complete restoration of) all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." (Ac 3.20-21)
The human mind recoils from such a perspective on the passage of time; that God would begin to prepare for His Return centuries beforehand. But this quite negative reaction uncovers our own self-centredness (that time should somehow or other orbit and fit us?), and sinfulness (our minds and "clocks" are simply not in agreement with Him?).
"Thou has made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in thy sight. Surely every man stands as a mere breath." (Ps 39.5)
"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night." (Ps 90.4)
"But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Pe 3.8)
Did not the Lord indicate His strategy for salvation at the very dawn of history? (Ge 3.15) Did He not speak of the Baptist (Isa 40) and promise our Saviour "wounded for our transgressions" (Isa 53), at least 700 years before their days?
(2) The "miracle" of St. Agnes.
The climax and conclusion of this (Church/salvation) Age will be the exaltation and establishment of the Lord upon His Throne on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Therefore, it ought to come as no surprise at all, that the days immediately before The Day, concern His government and our government of His Church becoming more and more "at one" and in agreement...along the lines of Mary and Simeon's ecstatic prophecies:
"The Lord has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree." (Lk 1.52)
"Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel." (Lk 2.34)
Throughout every generation and in all Christian denominations (yes...even today's most avant-garde movements!) men and women have invariably fashioned "thrones" of some kind or other, to exalt themselves. Historically, the most unfortunate and glaring of these has been the Roman Catholic Church's Pope...especially in all of his pre-Vatican II pomp and "glory".
In 1855, in the Church of St. Agnes in Rome, the then Pope (decked out in all of his finery and "crowned" upon this throne) received the homage (they lined up to kiss his toe!) of a group of student priests. The floor where they were all gathered gave way completely, plunging the whole assembly 20 feet down into the catacombs below. Thankfully, no one was killed...none were even injured. Thus Catholics today call the event the "miracle of St. Agnes". I call it a monumental sign of the times, indicating that the time of the signs is well and truly underway.
(3) Zionism.
By the early 1800s in western Europe, Judaism generally considered a policy of assimilation the best way to ensure the survival of its race, religion and culture. And so (for example) English Jews set out to be more English than the noblest and most venerable aristocrats. But then, quite suddenly and as if from nowhere, appeared "a dapper Viennese Jew...an assimilated and highly sophisticated journalist", shocked to the core by the horrors of institutional anti-Semitism and turned into "the fiery prophet of political Zionism"! (2)
Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) "convened" the First Zionist Congress (with representatives from 16 countries) on the 29th of August, 1897. His conviction that "Palestine is the only land where our people can come to rest", and further congresses proved to be the "detonator" for the "exploding" into existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East in 1948.
(4) The Unspeakable.
Tragically the term "Holocaust" (lit. "burnt offering") has been debased by over- and inaccurate-employment...being attached to other tragic events, which can in no way be compared to the destruction of 67 percent of God's Jewish People in those countries of Europe "directly or indirectly under Nazi control". In Poland, the Baltic States, Germany and Austria the number of the Beloved slain was 90 percent. In Slovakia, Greece and Holland...70 percent. In the Ukraine, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Romania and Norway...50 percent.
The statistics ought to be mind-numbing. Tragically, perhaps the most sinister form of Holocaust-denial today is that very numbness...which can so easily lead to a sense of unreality and consequent shoulder-shrugging detachment and indifference.
I do not resile nor shrink from the view that Israel could never "hope to escape the carnage of Jewish history, being at one and the same time the object of satan's jealous hatred and rage at their belovedness, and left uncovered and hedgeless (through their unbelief) since Calvary and the destruction of Herod's Temple." (3)
There can be no doubt that "the Jews are God's beloved People" and that "they are living under the most severe discipline and chastening" unto their complete salvation. (3) But an all too often neglected part of Israel's history is that satan invariable lashes out at them immediately before a great redemptive act on God's part towards them. E.g. Pharaoh's policy of infanticide before the Exodus. Haman's genocidal plans prior to the return from Exile. Herod's paranoid killings at the time of Messiah's birth. The Holocaust, which anticipates the day when "all Israel will be saved". (Ro 11.26)
The Holocaust must be understood by the Church at many different levels; neglect of it being a most significant sign of the Parousia will prove a critical and mortal error. (4)
(5) A Jewish State.
In November of 1947, the UN General Assembly endorsed the creation of a Jewish state in The Land (33 votes to 13...10 countries abstained). In May of the following year, Israel declared its independence. The Arab League's secretary-general immediately announced a war "of extermination and a momentous massacre"!
This witness is especially noteworthy, because the event laid the foundation and prepared the way for:
(6) A Restored Jerusalem.
In 1967 (on June the 7th) Israel's military forces took control of the whole of the city of Jerusalem, while withstanding simultaneous assault by Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Egypt (undergirded by the Soviet Union). A senior Israeli army officer (Colonel Motta Gur) later wrote (first-hand) of this event, "What started as a strictly military operation ended as something else entirely. Suddenly we were fighting as if in a trance. We understood at that moment that our objective was no longer to occupy this or that strategic position, but to liberate history itself."
Fourteen years later, the incomparable British, Evangelical scholar, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) indicated his belief that Luke 21.24 was "one of the most significant prophetic verses" concerning "the last times".
Pointing out that the verse reads, "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled", the 'Doctor' declared, "It seems to me that that took place in 1967...the year that the Jews occupied all of Jerusalem...something crucially important (took place) that had not occurred in 2000 years." (5)
But it is not the conquest which is the sign, but the presence...of God's Beloved, dwelling throughout the whole of the City, especially assuming guardianship of the Old and the Temple Mount. The ongoing existence of a Jewish Community in Jerusalem (albeit a remnant) is utterly essential, so far as key prophecy goes, concerning the return of The King.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem...you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' " (Mt 23.37-39)
"And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against (Jerusalem)...And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced...In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and impurity...Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives." (Zec 12,13,14)
The Messianic "father", David Baron (1855-1926, England) has most succinctly prophesied the "tri-chotomy" of the mystery of Israel, during her (and our) "one-minute-to-midnight" divine appointment.
"It is clear that there is a time of purging by fiery judgement awaiting Israel after the return to their land, which will immediately precede their national conversion and the revelation to them of the Messiah, whom as a nation, they have so long rejected."
God's ancient People must be in His ancient City to be simultaneously the target of the wrath of satan and the nations, and the recipients of the severest correction of the Father, and the most dramatic spiritual revival and national deliverance Heaven has ever sent and earth ever seen.
You will by now have observed that four of the six signs identified here, concern Israel. This is not the result of some theological or emotional bias. It is simply being Scriptural. At the centre of that supremely prophetic book of the Bible (Revelation and chapter 12), Israel appears as "a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (verses 1-2), and is described as a "great" (mega) sign.
We know that this "woman" is Israel, because of Joseph's dream that "the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down" to him. His father Jacob (Israel) instantly interpreted this night vision, "Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?" (6) They did!
From time immemorial, the lights of the heavens have been the crucial pointers for navigation for the human race...by night and by day; by land and by sea. As it has been in the natural, so it now is in the spiritual realm. Any Believer or Church undertaking a traverse of the uncharted and stormy ocean of the Last Days, will get lost if they don't refer to the "sun, moon and stars". Any who (at this late hour) have failed to already take their bearings from Israel, will in the future peer "sightless" into the sky during the Last Hour because:
"The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining." (Joel 3.15)
"The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven." (Mt 24.29) (7)
In other words, the time has come when God says to the "seers" scrabbling about in search of some "prophetic" bauble or doodad to "light" their way..."You've got your signs! Now run and take action in their light...or choose to blunder about in the darkness!"
"Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it." (Am 8.11-12)
"Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without divination. The sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them; the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God." (Mic 3.6-7)
(1) Calvin's "heir", Karl Barth (20th C), has gone so far as to say, "If the Church were not being reformed; if it were not essential for the Church to live in renewal...then it would not be a Church at all."
(2) "Wanderings" by Chaim Potok (Fawcett Crest, NY, 1978)
(3) "A Great Sign" by Peter Robertson (Revivalstreams, Auckland, 2009)
(4) "Let the churches of the Gentiles beware at this late hour of the world's history...of yielding to unbelief in the promises of God, and inadvertently revealing apathy on the subject of Israel's conversion. By such neglect we shall commit a perilous mistake and incur the displeasure of God." (Dr. Alexander Somerville, Scottish Presbyterian divine,1813-89)
(5) "Chosen by God" by Christopher Catherwood (Crossways Books, Illinois, 1986)
(6) Genesis 37.
(7) These and other portions of the Bible (E.g. Rev 6.12 & 8.12) indicate that Israel's prophetic "light" is significantly "muted" during her final Passion (consisting of both persecution and chastisement), which immediately precedes her national awakening and Resurrection. In fact this "dimming" is itself the penultimate sign of our Lord's Return; the salvation of "all Israel" being the ultimate.
Season of Suddenly's
As these Last Days intensify and escalate, we are going to find ourselves living in and through a "season of suddenly's". The Church was born in and into just such an hour:
"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God." (Lk 2.13)
"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind...And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." (Ac 2.1-4)
"Now as (Saul) journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice." (Ac 9.3-5)
And in exactly the same kind of dramatic interval and atmosphere, will salvation-history be fulfilled (with visitations of both great grace and chastisement):
"And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts." (Mal 3.1)
"But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father...Watch therefore...lest he come suddenly and find you asleep." (Mk 13.32-37)
"But as to the times and the seasons, brethren...you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When the people say 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them." (1 Th 5.1-3 also Jer 51.8-9 & Rev 18.1-2)
One of the reasons why eschatology is today generally scorned or else held at arm's length, is because we've had to wait so long for the Parousia or 2nd Coming. But, such a "delay" is not an invitation to cynicism and thinly disguised unbelief...but to patience and vigilance.
"What is this proverb that you have about the land of Israel, saying, 'The days grow long, and every vision comes to nought'?" (Eze 12.22)
"First of all you must understand this, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own passions, and saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.' " (2 Pe 3.3-4)
"And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified; for this must first take place, but the end will not be at once...Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing hear." (Lk 21.9&28)
Nor is the promise of the Lord's "sudden" Return an inducement to panic and enter into a ministry of running at ever-increasing speed, in ever-diminishing circles. But it is a call to position ourselves in and for the End Times. What meaneth this?
The moment-by-moment "Administrator" of God's Will on the earth, in the Church and in history, is the Holy Spirit (supported by the holy angels).
"It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirement." (Ac 15.28)
"Take heed to yourselves and to the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the Church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son." (Ac 20.28)
To position ourselves aright, so far as God's final "suddenly's" are concerned, is to locate ourselves aptly and appropriately alongside and in the Spirit of the Lord. Such an alignment is accurately and vividly prophesied by exiled Ezekiel, in his vision of a river flowing from the altar of the Temple. (Ch. 47)
Here we see, with the prophet, the whole historical, New Testament flow of the Holy Spirit. From Calvary through the desert (of this world), and on into the Dead Sea which it heals...i.e. ultimate worldwide revival, culminating in "the resurrection at the last day" and "life from the dead".
Therefore, it now behoves us to join the prophet (not as observers, commentators and critics on the banks), but in the River which is swollen with the final purposes of God, and which is "deep enough to swim in - a river that no one could cross"!
By committing and abandoning ourselves to this Heaven-sent cataract and current, two absolutely crucial things will happen:
1) We will be carried along to arrive and to be, wherever the River reaches; the place of destiny and divine appointment.
2) We will reach the right place, at the right time thoroughly "wet"...fully anointed for His service.
"So everything will live where the river goes. Fishermen will stand beside the sea...it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of very many kinds." (Eze 47.9-10)
"He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.' " (Jn 7.38)
Gagged Kiwi
Dreamt this month (August) that I discovered a kiwi (iconic, NZ native bird) caught in a rat trap. I was very relieved to find that it was still alive; only its beak was trapped. I released it unharmed, and was surprised to find a piece of paper with a message written on it inside the bird's beak.
A critical and major problem for New Zealand's Church storms on...unacknowledged, unhindered and unchallenged! It is this, that "overseas" Christianity (especially North American) is usually (9.9 times out of 10?) deemed superior; the indigenous is continuously, contemptuously trammelled and trampled upon. Within this well-established "tradition", something truly unpardonable and lethal is occurring. The prophetic component or "department" of the whole Church, is quenching and silencing itself.
"Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything; hold fast what is good." (1 Th 5.19-21)
Our collective lust (fame, fortune and feel-good) for the Heaven-sent "bread" God has given specifically to other nations, has beguiled and ensnared and silenced us. We (corporately) have no one to blame but ourselves.
"They tested God in their heart by demanding the food they craved...But before they had sated their craving, while the food was still in their mouths, the anger of God rose against them and he slew the strongest of them." (Ps 78.18-31)
God's Word for New Zealand is not going to be found by rushing off to the "latest-greatest" church overseas. Nor will it be heard by importing the current "man (or woman) of God" to star in a glossy-brochured and glittering, "prophetical" three-ring circus!
"Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down)...But what does it (faith) say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach)." (Ro 10.6-8)
"Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, 'Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.' " (Jer 1.9)
The Word of God is right now in "the prophet's" mouth...in all of its beauty, power and resonance. But it is being foolishly and brutally suppressed. Into the consequent void and silence is gushing every kind of ridiculous, frothy flimflam and frippery that the devil, world and flesh can fashion to foist on a Church, blinded by cupidity and glistering "prophetic" toys, trinkets and baubles!
"Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry 'Peace' when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths...The sun shall go down upon the prophets and the day shall be black over them; the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God." (Mic 3.5-7)
"His (Israel's) watchmen are blind, they are all without knowledge; they are dumb dogs, they cannot bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. The dogs have a mighty appetite; they never have enough." (Isa 56.10-11)
Key to Zion
"Some Christians are very fond of the term 'Zion' as a name for the Church," wrote the Messianic "father" and scholar, David Baron of England, in the late 1800s. "They may be surprised to learn that 'Zion' in the Hebrew means a 'desert', 'barrenness', or, as it is translated in Isaiah 25.5 'a dry place'. " (1)
Today, in the Church, the term "Zion" continues to have a particular kind of currency...most usually it suggests some form or other of "triumphalism" or "gloriousness"? But David Baron's understanding leads us along an entirely different, salutary pathway...especially so far as prophecy and eschatology are concerned. In fact, it is a key to understanding life for Israel and the Church in the Last Days.
For example, in considering that text (Ro 11.26) which must be both seminal and central to any serious and bona fide study of final events, the picture painted for us indeed ends gloriously, but it is essentially grim.
"And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, 'The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob'."
(Note: Paul here quotes Isaiah 59.20-21, which reads, "And he will come to Zion as Redeemer..."? The most complete picture of the Lord's Second Coming is portrayed in both passages read together. He first of all comes "to" Zion, to Israel...and thence "from" Zion, to the nations!)
But what of this place He comes to? It is Jerusalem...rendered a "scorched earth" having been fought over and "strangled" right up to the hour of uttermost extremity, when Israel's Messiah intervenes to save (spiritually and physically) His beloved Jewish People.
"And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy...when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion...by a spirit of judgement and by a spirit of burning. Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and a shining flaming fire by night." (Isa 4.3-5)
"And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes...in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls." (Joel 2.30-32)
"Therefore because of you (rulers who abhor justice, priests who teach for hire, prophets who divine for money) Zion shall be ploughed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins...It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains...and peoples shall flow to it...and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and for evermore." (Mic 3.12 - 4.7)
This is the consistent testimony of the Prophets in Scripture...the prophetic and eschatological template, if you will. That beloved Israel (accompanied by the Church) will pilgrim through a final, brief Passion before entering into her Resurrection (2), "raised from the dead" by returning Messiah, Himself "the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep"! (1 Co 15.20-23)
"Ho Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped...I will encamp against you round about, and will besiege you with towers...then deep from the earth you shall speak, from low in the dust your words shall come; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost...and in an instant, suddenly, you will be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise." (Isa 29.1-7)
"Behold, the Lord will lay waste the earth and make it desolate...The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws...For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten...Then the moon will be confounded, and the sun ashamed; for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before his elders he will manifest his glory." (Isa 24)
"These are the words which the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah...'Why has every face turned pale? Alas! that day is so great there is none like it; it is a time of distress for Jacob; yet he shall be saved out of it.' " (Jer 30.4-7)
"And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time; but at that time your people (Daniel's) shall be delivered, every one whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." (Da 12.1-3)
"For lo, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall upon the earth...in that day I will raise up the booth of David ('throne' - Isa 16.5) that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old." (Am 9.9-11)
"I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle...his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives which lies before Jerusalem." (Zec 14.1-4)
I suspect that the term "Zion" only has triumphalist connotations for most Western Christians today for two reasons:
(i) Because "success" is their supreme goal... (idol?).
(ii) Because of its association with contemporary "Zionism", and its connection with the current State of Israel's "success" story.
Both expectations are to end in disappointment and disillusionment. The Church is not going to be triumphantly "raptured" prior to the time of great tribulation; nor is it going to succeed and take "dominion" over the whole earth immediately before the 2nd Coming.
The Church, along with Israel (people, nation and State), is going to plunge into the depths of the profoundest turmoil, adversity and difficulty, to there be chastened, preserved and finally rescued by our Lord Jesus Christ. He will return to a Zion made barren by and in His absence...but transformed by His presence into the earth's most exalted and beautiful city.
Any eschatology which rests on any other hope is false (a deception), and therefore will prove to be worse than no hope at all.
Until The King returns, Zion will be "barren"; by the eve of The Day it will have become a "desert"...along with most of the Middle East! But when He is enthroned, Zion will again be "David's fortress"...a place of utmost triumph and glory.
Why is it that the Church arrogantly persists in its totally selfish belief and expectation, that it will enter into its glory before The King enters into His? Such a view beggars belief ,and betrays a modern "gospel" which is all about our reward, and not at all about His!
"His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth. Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King." (Ps 48.2)
"It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it..." (Mic 4.1)
"On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: 'Do not fear, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.' " (Zep 3.16-18)
All hail, King Jesus! Come, Lord Jesus!
(1) "Israel's Present and Future" by David Baron (Morgan & Scott, London 1891)
(2) "And when they (my two witnesses) have finished their testimony, the beast that ascends from the bottomless pit will make war upon them and conquer them and kill them...But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up (lit. 'resurrected') on their feet." (Rev 11.7&11)
A Fiery Furnace
(The series of five essays which immediately precedes this message may be read in "The Tribulation Church" at www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz)
The vehement contention of the last of the Last Days is going to threaten existence itself. It is going to push both Israel and the Church to the brink of the abyss of destruction. Therefore, any person (Jew or Christian especially) who actually believes that life on earth will be "business as usual" during this epoch, is either ignorant or crazy...or both!
That is why God is crying out for a revolution in and of the Church. In the days of our "infancy" (Ac 15), the leaders of the Christian Community miraculously embraced and implemented one such revolution, when they "legislated" for Gentiles to become Believers without first of all "converting" to Judaism. This was a monumental paradigm shift. Had these people been unwilling or incapable of making such a massive alteration, it is not unthinkable that Christianity would have remained a little Jewish Sect, which vanished in the inferno of the 69-70AD Roman siege of Jerusalem.
By the 1500s the Gospel was sinking into a quagmire of unbiblical dogma and religious culture. Fortunately, there were those then capable of being spiritually and intellectually stretched beyond measure and "overturned". These began to espouse an expression of Christianity in which the dispensation of the grace of God was not exclusively tied to and thus ordered and limited by a "professional" priesthood and its "legal" sacraments (i.e. "religious ceremony or act regarded as outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace").
Praise God for the shock waves the formidable, German Reformer, Martin Luther, broadsided into the "establishment" when he dared to believe and teach that "a poor serving girl, if she has the Holy Spirit, is as well able to understand the Scriptures as the Pope himself."
Similarly, as the calendar ticked over into the 20th C, there were believers who "got over" themselves and refused to panic when the Holy Spirit moved His Gifts out of the ecclesiastical museum, put them back on the front-burner, and turned up the heat to "high"!
The end of The End is the enthronement of Heaven's King for this planet, which will take place on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The challenges to existence itself during this season will therefore have their focus and locus in Israel...people, nation and State. Here are some of the reasons why:
(1) God has ordained that His Son, our King, will return to the acclamation of a believing, Jewish Jerusalem.
"For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' " (Mt 23.39)
This passage of Matthew 23.37-39, contains three distinct prophecies from our Lord Jesus Christ. Two (His rejection by Jewish Jerusalem, and His abandonment of the city and its Temple to destruction and ruin) have already been plainly, and before the eyes of the whole world, fulfilled. The third will likewise be effected. But this will take place in the midst of horrendous, catastrophic conflict (which has been foreshadowed in WW2 and the Holocaust).
At the root of this lies (not only murderous, demonic anti-Semitism) but also "the prince of this world's" utter and complete hatred of the true King. (1) Jesus' enthronement means the devil's dethronement...and he will fight for his own existence, caring for the existence of no one else, not even God! This is no light matter to be addressed by a couple of cutesy-pie choruses, a franchised message, and a pot-luck dinner. It will require a revolution of and in the Church, according to Matthew 21.13, Mark 11.17 and Luke 19.46.
Israel's very existence is again about to be contested and threatened to the uttermost...and with her, existence itself on earth! "How can this possibly be?" I hear you dry-mouthedly enquire.
In the 1930s, a singular, Reformed theologian in Germany went toe-to-toe with the "antichrist" Hitler. His name was Karl Barth (1886-1968). Reflecting later upon this awful (and extremely prophetic) period of history, he wrote (2) that any denial of Israel was "a denial of Jesus Christ and therefore finally, of God Himself...The man who is ashamed of Israel, is ashamed of Jesus Christ and therefore of his own existence."
At present, among those who are sympathetic and supportive of God's Jewish People and the State of Israel, there is a call for the Church to return to its "Jewish Roots"? If this means anything other than a renewed cleaving unto Jesus Himself as the true root of the ancient Olive Tree (into which we "wild olive" shoots have been "grafted" - Ro 11) then the call is bunkum and hocus-pocus.
"If the root is holy, so are the branches." (Ro 11.16)
"The root of Jesse shall come, he who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles hope." (Ro 15.12)
"Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered." (Rev 5.5)
"I Jesus...am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star." (Rev 22.16)
This biblically famed picture of the Olive Tree-Israel-Church, commands Christian love for the Jewish People, ancient and modern. Why? Because they have only ever existed, and exist today, upheld in His Covenant with Abraham, by the Root who "is the same yesterday and today and for ever." (Jn 8.58, Heb 13.8)
That is why one such as Karl Barth can assert that the Lord Jesus "the Servant of God who came from Israel", and Jesus, the "Saviour of all peoples", are "two realities inseparable from each other...for the whole of history, indeed for all eternity. Israel is nothing apart from Jesus Christ...Jesus Christ would not be Jesus Christ apart from Israel."
That is why he even more strongly (perhaps for some, shockingly?) can insist, "Anyone who is in principle hostile to the Jews, must also be seen as in principle an enemy of Jesus Christ." (3)
Who, if not the Church, is going to labour in prayer to oppose the "great red dragon" who has already sought to "devour" the "male child (who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron)", brought forth by the "woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars"?
Who, if not the Church, is going to pray for this "woman", still fiercely pursued by the dragon who continues to pour "water like a river out of his mouth...to sweep her away with the flood"? (Rev 12)
(2) God has gathered His beloved Jewish People into The Land to be saved..."but only as through fire". (1 Co 3.15) The Messianic scholar, David Baron (1855-1926, England) plainly foresees these events in his exposition of Ezekiel 22.17-22: "It is clear that there is a time of purging by fiery judgement awaiting Israel after their return to their land, which will immediately precede their national conversion and the revelation to them of the Messiah, whom, as a nation, they have so long rejected."
The issue of Jesus our King's return, is the issue of the presence of a believing Jewish Community in Jerusalem. And the issue of just such a Company, spiritually awakened and restored unto Jesus, is the issue of remnant-Israel being present in The Land...even as "all the nations of the earth" circle for "the kill"!
satan and his nations will view Jerusalem (and The Land too!) as a vessel of final destruction. But God's grace is to triumph and will make this instrument of apparent death like unto the "burning fiery furnace" of Daniel 3 - to be sure, stoked by "Nebuchadnezzar" (4) - but wherein walks "the Son of God" their Saviour (v25) who "chastises every son whom he receives". (Heb 12.6)
"So all Israel will be saved...the Deliverer will come from (and 'to' according to Isaiah 59.20-21) Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob." (Ro 11.26-27)
"And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, every one who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgement and by a spirit of burning." (Isa 4.3-4)
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child." (Zec 12.10)
Who, if not the Church, will toil and go "up into the breaches" (rent by Jewish apostasy and satan's jealous hatred) or build up "a wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord"? (Eze 13.5)
Who, if not the Church, is that "man" who will "build up the wall and stand in the breach" before God "for the land", that He "should not destroy it?" (Eze 22.30)
There is really nothing anywhere at this time within the local church movement, which even faintly or vaguely approximates the kind of prayer-engine and intercessory commitment which the days now breaking over us (and intimated above) so completely and totally require.
The revolution required of and in the Church is nothing other than the most radical and unconditional transition from all of the many and various "churches" (family-focused, seeker-friendly, revival, youth-oriented etc etc) to being "a house of prayer".
And this House will be simple and profound; obvious and mysterious! In the Last Hour, the Tribulation Church will give the first, the greatest portion and the best of its prayer (and substance!) for the salvation of "all Israel"...because that is the issue of the glory of God,
"For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen." (Ro 11.36)
It is the issue of the Parousia of the King,
"The Deliverer will come from (& to) Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins." (Isa 59.20, Ro 11.26-27)
And it is the issue of the consummation of this Age (Mt 13.39),
"Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean...for if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" (Ro 11.12&15)
The Last Church will be empowered to "forget itself and be itself", and step out of the frantic and competitive "grace queue", because of the promises of these verses immediately above. God's promises are clearly and unequivocally that Israel's "full inclusion" will mean yet greater enrichment by grace for the Gentiles; their "acceptance" will unlock ultimate revival (during which raising the dead becomes commonplace!) for the world.
The Church as "a house of prayer" is not only God's "ark" for survival through the last of these Last Days..."life together" constructed and maintained through worship and intercession. It will also be the prayer-vehicle whereby God ensures the dispensation of His power to preserve through extreme chastening unto total salvation, every son and daughter of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob alive upon the face of the earth at the time.
Such is our Lord Jesus Christ's agenda. If it fails to become our personal and corporate vision and task, then we risk reducing ourselves to the role of culpable bystander and witness to history's (and even existence's) ultimate moment of crisis and divine intervention.
"The distant sounds of our Master's chariots are already heard," says the Messianic "father", David Baron, "and Jesus Christ is coming quickly to render to every man according to his work.
"Who will be up and doing? Who will rise to the Lord's help against the mighty? Who by their prayers and substance will help to carry the gospel message to poor scattered Israel?"
(1) "And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth." (Rev 12.4) "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt...for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." (Mt 2.13)
(2) "Dogmatics in Outline" by Karl Barth (Harper & Row, NY 1959)
(3) As the Apostle Peter expounds (1 Pe 2.6-7), Jesus is both the "founding" and the "finishing" stone of God's House. It defies all logic, and sanity itself, to accept one completely crucial building block, and reject the other?
(4) Nebuchadnezzar, who invaded Judah, captured Jerusalem, and destroyed it and the Temple.
Go Out Quickly
"Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city...Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." (Lk 14.21-24)
"Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe...Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." (Joel 3.13-14)
"The harvest is the end of the age." (Mt 13.39)
During the night of 21/2/11, I dreamt that I was in a house full of the so-called "dregs of society", who were nevertheless diligently labouring to put all that was wrong with their lives, right. As they were doing this, from time-to-time, the whole building shuddered under repeated blows from an external, hostile and very powerful force.
What I was "seeing" is the Church in the Last Days. As The Day nears, the "gates/governors of hell" will hurl themselves against and upon the Church with increasing fury and frustration, but "will not overcome" what is truly built upon the Rock that will not roll. (Mt 7.24, 16.17-18, 1 Co 10.4, 1 Pe 2 6-7)
Meanwhile, God's great work of salvation will go on uninterrupted...intensifying in power and widening in scope.
I anticipate history's final Great Awakening...the centrepiece of which will be the salvation of "all Israel". (Ro 11.26)
As in the 18th C's First Great Awakening, this last revival will eclipse and engulf the Church. In it the Church (its dogmas, culture and structures) must learn to really and truly serve the purposes of God, or risk being swept aside and out of the way by this final, tidal wave of saving grace.
In the "Cambuslang Revival" (in the 1740s on the outskirts of Glasgow) the Presbyterian kirk (church) there was literally besieged by multitudes, unfathomably drawn by God beneath the sound of the Gospel. Observers reported that the preacher's words "came with a dint (like blows)" on the ears of the hearers, who felt their hearts "turn hot and overboil in tears".
Those present testified that they "had occasion to converse with many who had been awakened...some who had been very wicked and scandalous, but now wonderfully chang'd...very rude and boisterous before, they now had the mildness of the Lamb about them."
Crowds (the lowest estimate!) of "upwards of thirty thousand" were gathered. The full significance of this can only really be grasped when we recall that the population of nearby Glasgow at that time was "estimated by the magistrates" to be 17,034.
The (later famous) Presbyterian preacher, John Erskine, wrote of the "Cambuslang Revival", "It is to be hoped that this Work will not only go through our Land in the Length of it and the Breadth of it, but spread from Kingdom to Kingdom, till all the Kingdoms of the Earth shall become the Kingdom of God and of His Christ."
This is the spiritual paradigm which we must now embrace for this approaching season when the Church (as we have hitherto known it) is going to be either eclipsed or collapsed. As the Lord Jesus predicts with absolute accuracy, "The harvest is the end (consummation) of the age, and the harvesters are angels." (Mt 13.39)
Here is envisioned an ordained period when God Himself overshadows, not merely this or that church building or meeting house, but whole towns and regions whose citizens are suddenly and mysteriously awakened to the realities of God, sin and salvation. It will be a time when those determined to become Christians will outstrip the Church's capacity to cope, and our very best work of gathering, discipling and pastor-ing will have to be augmented by the holy angels themselves..."ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation." (Heb 1.14)
This should not be a notion which seems peculiar or exaggerated to us. It is a plain promise of God, which has in a measure already been experienced in days gone by...such as the First Great Awakening. Very great crowds regularly assembled in towns for no visible or obvious reason in England during the 1700s. No one knew why, until the Anglican revivalist, John Wesley rose his horse in and preached the Gospel to the multitude, drawn together days before he ever even decided to head in their particular direction.
In 1738, Wesley wrote of his new found vocation "field preaching", "I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields...I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church. What marvel the devil does not like field preaching. Neither do I. I love a commodious room, a soft cushion, a handsome pulpit. But where is my zeal, if I do not trample all these underfoot in order to save one more soul?"
200 years later, in Scotland, during the "Lewis Awakening", the revivalist Duncan Campbell testified, "Only God can make a community God-conscious."
The report of this later outpouring of grace and salvation, which was sent to the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, advised its ministers, "The presence of God was in homes, meadows, even public roads. A supreme feature of this God-sent revival was an awareness of the fear of God. Seventy-five percent were gloriously saved before meetings."
Ministers in that district quickly learnt to sleep fully clothed and sitting upright in their chairs. They expected to be woken during the night by whole families made anxious by the presence of God, and seeking peace through putting their trust in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. Farmers collapsed into freshly-turned dirt furrows, struck down by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, even as they trudged behind their plough horses.
This is how it is going to be before the 2nd Coming...and more so! The last, Last Days will be typified by a great falling away from God (2 Th 2.3)...but a much greater gathering to Him through Jesus. It's time to get ready!
"But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." (Ro 5.20)
"Make a road for the Lord through the wilderness; make him a straight, smooth road through the desert. Fill the valleys; level the hills; straighten the crooked paths and smooth off the rough spots on the road. The glory of the Lord will be seen by all mankind together." (Isa 40.3-4)
