Prophetic Insights

Prophetic Insights http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/prophetic-insights/ A Terrible Warning http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/a-terrible-warning/ "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it a robbers' den." (Mk 11.17)
 
The Lord Jesus' "cleansing the Temple" (Mt 21.12-13, Lk 19.45-46, Jn 2.16) was the fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy (uttered at least 400 years earlier).-
 
"The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple...the messenger of the covenant...He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver." (3.1-4)
 
At first glance, it is "those who were buying and selling in the temple" who seem to cop it. But the real target of the Lord's prophetic "rampage" is the priesthood...and most especially the high priestly family and their coterie of religious power-brokers. Thus.-
 
"The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him." (Mk 11.18)
 
The "little guy" wheelers and dealers may well have been back running their enterprises the very next day? After all, observant Jews still needed to buy kosher animals for their offerings, and "purchase" official half-shekels to pay their Temple tax. (Ex 30.11-16) It was really the "big boys" who were in the Lord's "sights"! The market stalls which were the focus of Jesus' "attack" were called the "Bazaars of Annas", and were "the private property of the family of the (then) High Priest of that name"!
 
But even this particular piece of religious real estate, was yet only symptomatic of the underlying and core issue which the Messiah was gunning for...i.e. religious and spiritual proprietorship! This phenomenon, by which some believe they can actually "own" the Church, was identified by the Lord as being "antichrist" in the Matthew 21.33-41 "Parable of the Landowner".
 
In this parable, the "landowner who planted a vineyard...sent to the vine-growers to receive his produce" to no avail! After many failed attempts "he sent his son to them", but "they took him out of the vineyard and killed him". Now note, the rationale of the vine-growers.-
 
"This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance."
 
And once again, no one was left in any doubt about this parable's intended audience.-
 
"When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them"! (v45)
 
I say that this is the demon antichrist, for its mission is not only to oppose Jesus' government of beloved Israel and his Church, but also, if possible, to usurp and replace Him as our Head. This parable's vine-growers seriously (insanely?) believed that by killing the owner's heir, they could claim ownership and thereby take control of the vineyard and all of its revenues.
 
Do not for one minute think that this evil spirit's work has yet been stopped. Over the past 40 years, I have either been employed by or ministered in almost every part of God's (Western) vineyard, the Church...in parts which cannot/will not recognise each other. Upon reflection, I would have to say that 99 percent of all the most heartbreakingly tragic and destructive events I have witnessed have been caused by Christians who believe that in some way, shape or form they "own" a local church, a movement, or even a denomination! It is also worth observing that these "owners" are not necessarily the visible leaders. Such can and do lurk, "hidden" within the Body, not unlike a spiritual "mafia"!
 
They too are the (unwitting?) victims of antichrist, but must bear responsibility and are culpable for their actions.
 
Now, here's the point! When our Lord went on the offensive against antichrist and religious proprietorship in Israel, He quoted two prophets...Isaiah and Jeremiah.-
 
"For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples." (Is 56.7)
 
"Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, declares the Lord." (Jer 7.11)
 
And it was His employment of Jeremiah's words which should have sent immense shock waves and a dense chill into the hearers' hearts. For with his very next breath, the great "prophet of wrath" continued with the terrible warning.-
 
"But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel." (7.12)
 
Jeremiah's "audience" could be in no doubt what he was warning by mentioning the fate of Shiloh, where God had once dwelt amongst His Israel. On a later occasion (26.7-9), the prophet again warned that the Temple would become "like Shiloh". The implications were crystal clear.-
 
"The priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, 'You must die! Why have you prophesied...This house will be like Shiloh and this city will be desolate, without inhabitant?' "
 
In the midst of the God-fuelled riot in the "Bazaars of Annas", Jeremiah's fearsome warning re-echoed off the great House's majestic pillars.-
 
"Get down off your thrones! Relinquish all and every claim you have ever made over God's House and People...or like Shiloh, you will quite simply and starkly stand to lose everything!"
 
As a nation, Israel did not heed the warning. In fact, they finally took the Son and "threw him out of the vineyard and killed him"...and themselves were brought "to a wretched end"!
 
At the time of His first Visitation, Israel's Messiah and the world's Redeemer looked for His People to be "a house of prayer for all nations". He knew very well that if they were so, they would be healthy. But He discovered them mortally ill. That is why, in this hour of preparation for His second (and final) Visitation, the prophets are crying out for a reformation of the Church which eclipses all previous renewals. We have to cease being an organisation for meetings, and become an organism of prayer; not a corporation, but a company of pilgrims; not a business, but a Body which exists to worship and adore; beseech and intercede.
 
When we come out of our board meetings with yet more "vision" statements and strategies, we are sick. When we get up off our knees drained of all the adoration and thanks we have to offer the Holy One, we are healthy. When we lick our lips seeking the sugary taste of the "success" of bigger meetings, larger offerings and "fame", we are diseased. When we hourly savour the sweetness of the dust beneath His feet, then we are well.
 
"The Lord is good to those who wait for Him...Let him put his mouth in the dust, perhaps there is hope." (La 3.25&amp;29)
 
"My souls cleaves to the dust; revive me according to Your word." (Ps 119.25)
 
It is all very well quoting "cleansing the Temple" texts admiringly...the Lord dealing to the naughty Jewish shopkeepers, and a cutsy-pie exhortation to pray a bit more thrown in? I don't think so!
 
It was a prophetic event of ultimate import, accompanied by a terrifying warning which was ignored and then fulfilled some 37 years later, when the brutal battalions of Rome massed about Zion's ramparts to "unleash hell"...their speciality! And it is still today a terrifying and ongoing warning. Any sense at all that God is now calling the whole Church to become "a house of prayer for all nations" must be unequivocally yoked to the implicit, fiery "threat"!
 
It is not merely a case of the Church becoming more prayerful for the Last Days. It is about God's People so re-constituting themselves according to His Will, that they are not sick, but healthy; not vitiated, but robust; not spiritual bureaucrats or religious professionals, but Believers at full-stretch and mature stature (Eph 4.13) when upon their faces, "night-and-day", within the Holy Place!
 
That is why I say (over-heatedly?...over-excitedly?) it's time to "Pray together or perish!" (Read www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz) There is going to be nothing moderate or even-tempered about antichrist's final, desperate and nihilistic lunge for all of this world's "thrones" (both sacred and secular) simultaneously. This is satan's last chance...and he knows its.-
 
"Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time." (Rev 12.12)
 
So, why is it that so much contemporary Christianity has in the main made such a virtue of "balance", temperance, sedateness. We admire Francis of Assisi from a safe distance as he shakes 12th C Europe with the Gospel. But what would really become of a young person today, if during an "altar call" they got naked as well as saved? (I can hear the deacons' knees knocking already!) Francis' impact was extreme...as was his passion for Christ, for prayer, and for unconditional obedience.
 
Bernard of Clairvaux (11th C) was 24 years-of-age when he founded and led a prayer house in France. During his life-time (directly or indirectly) he "planted" a further 170. To our "cool", modern ears his language can sound almost hysterical.-
 
"Prostrate, see Thy cross I grasp/ and Thy pierced feet I clasp/ Gracious Jesus, spurn me not"
 
Bernard wrote a 4-volume commentary on the Song of Songs, recruited followers from the hangman, and reminded snobbish, upper-crust church-goers (in a sermon) that they too had been "born amidst faeces and urine"!
 
Perhaps today the Cross is more of a doctrine to which we assent...rather than an event we embrace and live. And thus we dare not risk losing everything, because we have yet to actually lay down our lives in its shadow? We do not know how to live, because we do not know how to die in Christ! Under the threat of antichrist in Germany in the 1930s, the martyr, Edith Stein prophesied.-
 
"More than ever the Cross is a sign of contradiction. The followers of the antichrist desecrate the images of the Cross and they make every effort to tear the Cross out of the heart of Christians. All too often they have succeeded even with those who once vowed to bear Christ's Cross after Him."
 
In order for the Last Church to become what we are not yet ("a house of prayer for all nation") we will have to die to all that we have ever been...and still cling to so fondly and desperately. But we are going to perish in the faecal-storm of the final tribulation unless we can discover our pathway into " 'a well ordered and well regulated common life' hinging and pivoting upon prayer."
 
Sometimes this will inevitably involve blind-faith, "unwise" risk-taking, humiliating failures! But then the King and Head of the Church did not in fact guarantee success, fame, happiness, prosperity...a Cross-denying culture vast numbers of Western Christians currently worship. But He did promise us.-
 
"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me...whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." (Mt 16.24-27)
 
The authentic Christian life is "life from the dead" (Ro 11.15), according to "the power of an indestructible, endless life". (Heb 7.16)
 
The "house of prayer for all nations" Church is going to appear for The End, arising out of the redundant and the expired which we have voluntarily demolished...or it will come up through the ashes of that which is destroyed, around our deaf ears.
 
As frightening as this responsibility may seem, we still do have the choice.
 
"I am disturbed with an uneasy sense that we sophisticated, modern folk, with out pitiful timidity and our persistent self-seeking are living in darkness and misery when we might follow the supreme Sufferer through suffering into light and joy." (1)
 
 
(1) "Theism &amp; the Modern Mood", W.M. Horton (SCM Press, NYC) Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:12:56 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/a-terrible-warning/ The Consummate Church http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/the-consummate-church/ "One day, today is going to become The Day." This is a little "chant" of mine, which I think some churches might well be heartily sick and tired of hearing me repeat? But recite it I shall, if possible (Deo volente!) right up and into that Day...known to the Prophet Malachi ("messenger of Jah") as "the great and dreadful day of the Lord"! (4.5)
 
It is that Day of days, when the Lamb of God (once so sorely "enthroned" upon the Cross on Golgotha) will be vindicated by His "coronation" as the Lion of the tribe of Judah on the Temple Mount in Israel's Jerusalem.
 
And before today crashes into The immovable and unyielding Day, there will be ever-intensifying collision between the advancing Kingdom of Heaven and the retreating powers of darkness. This, the soon-coming King Himself calls "a great tribulation"! (Mt 24.21 &amp; 29)
 
Last year, I wrote and published the e-book, "THE TRIBULATION CHURCH" (<a href="http://www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz">www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz</a>). Its key points are.-
 
1) There will be no Rapture (escape) for the Church before or during the final "great tribulation".
 
2) Before his fate is sealed by the Return of the King, the devil will hurl every vile thing and employ every foul means to evade his doom by trying to annihilate God's People Israel and God's People the Church.
 
3) The Church's experience in Hitler's Germany (1933-45) is one of the most powerful and significant prophecies for the End Times. It insistently teaches us two indisputable facts.-
 
(a) Church as "organisation", maintained by administration and events, is comparatively easily seduced and neutralised by antichrist. Its congregants are meeting-dependent, and require ever-increasing doses of re-assurance and/or excitement from their authority figures...the ever-changing, latest-greatest, "hero" of faith and power. When the crunch came in the 1930s, the German Church just could not compete with Hitler's torch-lit pageants, spell-binding oratory, and promises of "heaven on earth"!
 
(b) The German prophet, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's message to his own and our day (communicated by deed even more than word) is that God's People are above all an "organism"..."a body with connected interdependent parts sharing a common life" of prayer.
 
"The church, which is His body." (Eph 1.22-23)
 
"Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Saviour of the body." (Eph 5.23)
 
Dietrich was charged by those of God's People who resisted Hitler, with the training of their pastors. He was led, with them, not into programmes of greater intellectual achievement, more efficient business practices, or more skillful event management. The Spirit of Christ trained them for conflict with antichrist by pilgrim-ing them together into " 'a well ordered and well regulated life' hinging and pivoting upon prayer"!
 
It is my well-considered and now implacable conviction, that that alone which will remain and prove to be Church at the end of the End Times, will be made up of those who have determined to be, and have been made by the very grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, "a house of prayer for all the nations". (Is 56.7, Mk 11.17)
 
What this will precisely mean practically, for this or that local church in a particular city or nation...I would not arrogantly pretend to know. Nevertheless, I am determined to continue to push and keep on advocating (no matter how unwelcome!) the message of "THE TRIBULATION CHURCH" <a href="http://www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz" target="_blank">www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz</a>
 
I am prepared to press and agitate to the uttermost, for the following to take place.-
 
A) Every local church to view itself and understand itself first-and-foremost as being, not an organisation which holds meetings (no matter how well-attended or "anointed") or provides social services...but as a family that prays together daily.
 
B) Every local church to form and support a prayer cell in its "heart" (not just a tolerated, fringe activity!) which undertakes night-and-day corporate prayer based upon the Psalms. This will radically alter the origin of a church's true motivation; prayer, rather than board meetings and flow charts, will become its constant "genesis" and dynamo.
 
As the Scottish theologian, Peter Taylor Forsyth (1848-1921) has asserted, "There is no such engine ('driving force') for the growth and command of the moral soul, single or social, as prayer...It sets us also at the very centre of the world in God, which gives us the true hierarchy of things."
 
The German contemplative and martyr of the Nazis, Edith Stein said, "Official history is silent about these invisible and incalculable forces (of prayer)...Our time is more and more determined, when all else fails, to hope for ultimate salvation from these hidden sources (of prayer)."
 
This need not in any way-shape-or-form threaten or undermine a church's leadership structure...provided its leaders are not merely praying lip-service to being a house of prayer. If they do "play games", and continue covertly to "rule" (Heb 3.7) from their offices rather than their knees, then such deserve to feel discombobulated and should expect "unrest and base actions"! (Jas 3.16)
 
I say "prayer cells" situated within the local body, rather than an organisation. It has ever been God's way to bring necessary change, not by grand-scale, impressive, wholesale restructuring, but by the "seed" principle. Thus King Jesus describes His Kingdom.-
 
"How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade." (Mk 4.30-32)
 
In the world, "great" things begin in a grand way...all trumpets and drums. In the Kingdom of God, they commonly begin microscopically.-
 
"The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened." (Mt 13.33)
 
God will reform His Church into an authentic "house of prayer for all nations" in readiness for the last of the Last Days, through strategically placed, white-hot "coals" of night-and-day prayer. Each might only consist of three or four pray-ers, for whom adoration and intercession are their "meat and drink"! They will most likely be quite unimpressive and unassuming folk, who have nevertheless proven to their own satisfaction that, "God will direct other men in Spirit to provide us with all that is necessary for this life (of prayer), such as food and clothes and everything else, when He sees that we refuse to leave off the work of His love to busy ourselves about those things." ("The Cloud of Unknowing" Anon 14th C)
 
And because such believe absolutely that the local church is God's basic and irreplaceable building block for His Kingdom, their prayers will.-
 
(i) Fly like sparks out into the wider church, kindling more and fiercer fires of praise, worship, and intercession.
 
(ii) Slowly but surely elevate the overall water table of prayer and community across the whole Body.
 
To those who retreat from this prospect muttering about "mysticism" and "Rome", etc etc...I would say as crudely and bluntly as is decent, "Grow up!" If someone offers you a glass of cool, clean water, do you feel obliged to chew up and swallow the vessel after you drink? If you did, you'd be pretty dumb...if not mad!
 
I simply couldn't care less how God's good and holy gifts come packaged. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was accused of compromising his Reformed faith. But at the end of WW2, his students gratefully testified just how well his training (living a life of organised, corporate praying of the Psalms) had prepared them for Gestapo prisons and concentration camps.
 
Only Eternity will finally and fully reveal what fires were lit and what sparks flew out into the Nazi darkness, from Dietrich's "primitive...underground" seminary which was "buried" in the "tiny" Baltic village of Finkenwalde. His "school of prayer's" first abode was described as a "neglected pigsty" which the students themselves made habitable. How are we preparing today, for our own inevitable time of trial, tomorrow?
 
"For who has despised the day of small things?" (Zec 4.10)
 
"But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our bondage." (Ezr 9.8)
 
"And He spoke to the man clothed in linen and said, 'Enter between the whirling wheels under the cherubim and fill your hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim and scatter them over the city.' " (Eze 10.2)
 
 
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<a href="http://www.kopuamonastery.org.nz/" target="_blank">www.kopuamonastery.org.nz/</a> Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:36:51 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/the-consummate-church/ Under His Feet http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/under-his-feet/ "And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." (Eph 1.22-23) In the 13th chapter of The Revelation, the two powers (1) which have ever opposed God on earth, appear to range themselves at the Last hour "against the Lord and against His Anointed" who is about to be "installed...upon Zion, My holy mountain." (Ps 2.2-6) All too often, Christians when forming their eschatology (End Times' beliefs) get carried away on a tide of horrified fascination with the dragon and his beasts. For this reason (and also for the sake of Truth itself) it is of the utmost importance to allow Revelation 10 to cast its long, powerful, and significant shadow right across chapter 13. In essence, in chapter 10 we "see" at the eleventh hour of this Age (v7 "in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound" Mt 24.31, 1 Co 15.52, 1 Th 4.16) a "strong angel coming down out of heaven" to stand with "his right foot on the sea and his left on the land". (v2) As I have already explained in footnote (1), in the Bible, the "earth" is a symbol of the supernatural, and the "sea" represents the world. It is of paramount importance at The End, when everything is being turned on its head and shaken, that we see clearly and understand completely that God has "put all things in subjection under (Jesus') feet"...most especially and particularly the devil and the "earth" and "sea" beasts! Hallelujah! "He (the woman's seed) shall crush you (the serpent) on the head." (Ge 3.15) "The serpent (dragon) you will trample down." (Ps 91.13) "The God of peace will soon crush satan under your feet." (Ro 16.20) I am not minimising, nor glossing over, nor taking lightly the tribulation of The Tribulation. I get it, that life is going to be rough and tough, to such an extent that "unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect (chosen ones) those days will be cut short." (Mt 24.22) But more importantly I get the fact that (according to Revelation 13.1) the dragon is actually limited to standing "on the sand of the seashore"! Once again, when the pressure really comes on, the devil over-plays his hand. In his greed to dominate both realms (world and spirit) he ends up paddling around in the shallows...half-bakedly on the land and the sea. Meanwhile, God's "strong and mighty" angel places his feet, which are like "pillars of fire", firmly and squarely and securely on top of both realms. And from that divinely ordained vantage point, he speaks out in God's name with the sound like a lion roaring and thunder thundering, all rolled into one! "The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most high uttered His voice." (Ps 18.13) (2) When there are but a few grains of sand left in this Age's hour-glass, you will need to choose who and what you look at. Feel free to become a conspiracy theorist...an "expert" with ever-new and fashionable ideas about "666", "marks", "beasts" etc etc. For myself, I intend to watch God. And when I watch Him and, in this particular instance, His mighty, ministering spirit ("sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation" Heb 1.14), I see: 1) He is "clothed with a cloud". (v1) "Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you forever." (Ex 19.9) "I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat." (Lv 16.2) "The Lord has said that He would dwell in the thick cloud." (1 Ki 8.12) The strong and mighty angel has not just come visiting from outer-space. He has come from the "heart" of Heaven where the glory cloud is thickest and most dense and intense. So he appears still wreathed and adorned with the very Presence of God. He is "clothed" with God Himself. 2) He has "the rainbow...upon his head." (v1) "Behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne...and there was a rainbow around the throne." (Rev 4.2-3) "When I bring a cloud over the earth...the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant...and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh." (Ge 9.14-15) The End Times are going to become increasingly catastrophic for earth-dwellers. As the Lord Jesus Himself predicted, some people are actually going to suffer heart-failure "as they wait in dread of what is coming upon the world"! (Lk 21.26) But if your eyes are upon the Lord, then you will be heartened and encouraged to see that His holy emissary "wears" the sign of God's covenantal faithfulness, which will be absolutely prejudiced and weighted towards mercy...right up to and including the very final micro-second of this Salvation Age. "God our Saviour, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Ti 2.3-4) "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Pe 3.9) 3) His face is "like the sun". (v1) "And (Jesus) was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun." (Mt 17.2) "His face was like the sun shining in its strength." (Rev 1.16) This angel of the Apocalypse is neither minion nor flunky. We are having to do here with someone whose position is as close to the Seat of all power as it's possible to get. This is he who is spoken of by God during the Exodus as "My angel" (23.23)...and by the great Isaiah as "the angel of His presence"! (Is 63.9) This is not some fellow at the bottom of the revelatory "food-chain". This is a senior commander and cabinet minister of Heaven...and yet he is here "to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation". 4) His feet are "like pillars of fire". (v1) "The Lord was going before them...in a pillar of fire by night, that they might travel...by night." (Ex 13.21) At The End, "the darkness" will make one final, doomed attempt to "overpower" the Light! (Jn 1.5) Thick darkness will (physically as well as spiritually) blanket great portions of the earth. But, "all sons of light and sons of day" will not be "in darkness". (1 Th 5.4-5) Our strong and mighty messenger's feet will be for all those determined to "walk in the light" (1 Jn 1.7), like unto the Exodus Cloud (in both visible and invisible realms)...blazingly brilliant and unquenchable illuminators for "the feet of those who preach and bring Good News of good things". (Ro 10.15) 5) He has "in his hand a little book which was open." (v2) We understand this "little book" in contrast to that "big" book which John sees in Heaven "in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne". (5.1) It has writing "inside and on the back"...a complete and entire document. Its seals are broken open by the Lamb of God who alone is "worthy" for such a task because He was "slain and purchased for God with (His) blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation". I believe that the breaking of the seven seals precipitates the unfolding of Salvation History in its entirety...both blessings and judgements. And so, I regard the "little book" as God's minute-by-minute revelatory speaking for the final few moments of the Last Hour. These are not messages which can be academically studied and carefully prepared ahead of time. So grave is this Hour, and so ultimate the issues (all of them literal matters of life-and-death) that the prophet's capacity to comprehend is by-passed, and the words of the Lord ingested just like food. "Your words were found and I ate them." (Jer 15.16) "Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you. Then I looked, and behold...a scroll...written on it were lamentations, mourning and woe." (Eze 2.8-10) Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel had to ingest the Word of the Lord, before they could (in both instances) prophesy effectively into the teeth of the howling gale of violent opposition. What is going on here? A) God's speaking to the Church and the world at The End will be a mixture of sweet and bitter (sharp); grace and chastisement; blessing and judgement. Such messages containing all of these ingredients are too difficult for many to hold together in their minds and hearts...their sensual natures prefer the taste of one or the other! B) These messages are going to be so difficult that the authentic and faithful servant will not merely preach or prophesy...he or she, in and of themselves, will become the message; become the prophetic word. As King David was ultimately able to say, "But I am prayer!" (Ps 109.4)...so, at The End the bona fide and valid seer will be known as that person who has become prophecy. Such lives will often be more eloquent and accurate than speech...their walk will exceed their talk! And for those who might think that this is all very cool and fine-and-dandy...note this! The strong angel has been sent to the prophet John...making clear that we never, ever, under any circumstances presume to appoint ourselves to such a role or task. Nevertheless, John then has to choose to get up in profoundly considered and weighed obedience to "take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land". (v8) He has to tell the angel to give him the book...then he must eat it, both its sweetness and its bitterness. God chooses His prophets. (I am sure this will come as a terrible shock to present-day prophetical fashionistas!) But then they must choose to be chosen...having properly and thoroughly gauged all of the consequences of such a life of ministry, even unto their personal dissolution and death! (Lk 14.28-30) "For many are invited ones but few are chosen-out ones." (Mt 22.14 Wuest NT) "Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you." (2 Pe 1.10, Rev 17.14) (1) The "sea beast" is the manifestation of satan's contention through the nations of the world. (Rev 17.15) The "earth beast" represents the spirit world's opposition via religious movements. (1 Sa 28.13) (2) This will be an absolutely authoritative and comprehensive revelation (Ps 29.3-9) of and from God for the Last Hour; a declaration of war (Isa 31.4-7), which nevertheless draws all who will come, to come...especially His beloved Israel. (Hos 11.10, Joel 3.16-17) Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:31:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/under-his-feet/ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/o-jerusalem-jerusalem/ "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.' " (Mt 23.37-39) I dreamt recently that I was in Jerusalem in Israel. I was there for the installation of the final and completing stone at the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. The city was awash with Muslim People...predominantly women who were veiled. As I made my way through the Old City to the Mount, jet fighters were flying very low and hard over us. The city was clearly a war-zone. (1) One Day, the Lord Jesus Christ will return to take His Throne on the Temple Mount, precisely upon the space where the Holy of Holies stood in the Temple of the Lord. At that time will be accomplished the Prophet Zechariah's prediction, which is contained in chapter 4, verses 7 through 9: "What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of 'Grace, grace to it!' Also the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands will finish it.' " (Thus also fulfilling, "The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts." Hag 2.9) Jesus Himself is the Founder and "chief corner stone" of "the household of God"...and upon His return He will be the "capstone", thus with His own Person completing its construction. (Eph 2.20, 1 Pe 2.6&amp;7) (This being the case, you will better understand why "Kingdom Now" teaching, and the puerile, worldly elitism of the "neo-apostles" is so abhorrent to me. The first, believes the Kingdom of God can exist on the earth, without the King Himself being physically enthroned at its heart. The second, construct thrones for themselves and arrogantly occupy them...making of themselves pseudo-capstones!) (2) Before the King's Return, there is going to be massive conflict and upheaval (political, social and natural); its final focus will be Jerusalem, God's "throne room". As this Age approaches its biblical climax and conclusion, the devil, unrepentant humankind, and every world-system will mount their final, ferocious, and completely futile opposition. "This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the centre of the nations." (Eze 5.5) "They will call Jerusalem 'The Throne of the Lord', and all the nations will be gathered to it." (Jer 3.17) "Why are the nations in an uproar?...the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed...But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain." (Ps 2) (3) No matter how many pre-emptive strikes Israel makes against hostile neighbours, immediately before The King comes to save them (both physically and spiritually), great tracts of the current State will be invaded, and half of Jerusalem itself (East?) will be occupied by zealous and militant Muslim Peoples. "Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the people around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah...For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured...and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city." (Zec 12.2, 14.2) "Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments...The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you...But it shall come about, if you do not obey the Lord your God...The Lord shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies." (Deut 28) "When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him." (Pr 16.7) God has ever required that His beloved Jewish People pay for their security with their obedience to His Law...now incarnate in Jesus, their Messiah and the world's Redeemer. "You shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end." (Lk 1.31-33) "My eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a Light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel." (Lk 2.30-32) (4) Israel's salvation at the End of this Age will be total, complete, and absolute, "And so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, 'The Deliverer will come from (and to...according to Isaiah 59.20) Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.' 'This is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.' " (Ro 11.26-27) "When the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah...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; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son...Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives." (Zec 12&amp;14) As our Messianic "father", David Baron (1855-1926, England) prophesied at the dawn of the 20th C, "Suddenly, when the cloud will be thickest, and the anguish most acute...and Israel's enemies be most certain in their own minds of accomplishing their purpose and utterly exterminating that people...then, with the speed of lightning, and attended by all His saints and hosts of angels, shall the same Jesus, who ascended bodily and visibly on a cloud from the Mount of Olivet, so and in like manner, be revealed again; but this time in a special and peculiar manner, as Israel's King and Deliverer." (1) "Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away His judgement against you, He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you will fear disaster no more." (Zep 3.14-15) (5) Nevertheless, something even more important than Israel's reconciliation with their Messiah, and Jerusalem's return to God, occurs at The End...The King returns and reigns. "And the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one...then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths." (Zec 14.9&amp;16) (6) All of these momentous events will not take place off in a corner; they have already been in the daily news headlines for quite some time. Nor will they be accomplished uncontested! Here mesh (but beyond human "sight" and reason's reach) the sovereignty of God and our (Christian) responsibility. God "works all things after the counsel of his will" (Eph 1.11), and yet "to all those who obey Him" Jesus is "the source of eternal salvation". (Heb 5.9) Thus we may affirm with David Baron that "as sure as there was a cross planted for him on that Golgotha, outside the walls of Jerusalem, so surely, if the word and oath of our God stand for anything, is there yet to be a glorious throne for our Redeemer and Master on Mount Zion." And yet, this same apostolic Zionist, in the same breath, challenges the Church not "to fold her hands as she has done for many centuries and do next to nothing." "What your attitude to Israel should be, is plainly shown in the Word of God...It should be an attitude of prayer." Quoting Isaiah 62.6-7, "On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem a praise in the earth" ... David Baron challenges us from Eternity, "Do you aspire to be one of 'Jehovah's remembrancers'? Then hark to (this) His command. Let there be the heart's desire and believing prayer unto God for Israel that they may be saved. Has compassion, has gratitude for the wonderful blessings which you have received through them as the channel, yea, has God's clear word of command, ever made your heart go out after this manner in the prayer of faith for poor sick Israel?" And further, quoting from the Prophet Ezekiel (ch 37), David Baron complains that the Church "has neglected" to prophesy life (both physical and spiritual) to the "dry bones" of Israel. "And yet," he observes, "it (the Church) wonders that there has been no noise, no mighty shaking, or many signs of life among the dry bones. "Oh, fellow Christian, time is short...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) "So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath (spirit) came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceeding great army." (Eze 37.10) "For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation. This is my resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it." (Ps 132.13-14) "And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down from heaven from God, having the glory of God." (Rev 21.10-11) (1) "Israel's Present &amp; Future". A series of lectures delivered by David Baron in mid-1890, at Northfield, Massachusetts, USA. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:43:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/o-jerusalem-jerusalem/ Prayer Works http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/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 &amp; Stock, USA, 2005). (2) "Reversed Thunder" by Eugene H. Peterson (HarperOne, USA, 1991) Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:29:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/prayer-works/ God's only Son http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/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 &amp; 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 &amp; 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. Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:39:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/god-s-only-son/ The Seven Stars http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/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 &amp; 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 &amp; 14) According to Daniel (10.13 &amp; 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 &amp; 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) Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:20:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/the-seven-stars/ Faithful is He http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/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 &amp; 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 &amp;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 Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:11:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/faithful-is-he/ The Big Picture http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/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 &amp; 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. Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:01:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/the-big-picture/ Season of Suddenly's http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/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 &amp; 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&amp;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) Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:23:00 +1200 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/season-of-suddenly-s/ Gagged Kiwi http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/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) Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:52:00 +1200 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/gagged-kiwi/ Key to Zion http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/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 &amp; 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&amp;11) Tue, 16 Aug 2011 09:32:00 +1200 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/key-to-zion/ A Fiery Furnace http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/a-fiery-furnace/ (The series of five essays which immediately precedes this message may be read in "The Tribulation Church" at <a href="http://www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz">www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz</a>) 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 (&amp; 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&amp;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 &amp; 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.
&nbsp; Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:40:00 +1200 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/a-fiery-furnace/ Go Out Quickly http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/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) Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:00:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/go-out-quickly/ Get Low http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/get-low/ "For promotion comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge; he puts down one, and sets up another." (Ps 75.6-7) "Therefore no other trees by the waters are ever to tower proudly on high, lifting their tops above the thick foliage." (Eze 31.14) "He has put down the mighty from their seats." (Lk 1.52) "For whosoever exalts himself shall be abased; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted." (Lk 14.11) "Everyone that exalts himself shall be abased; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted." (Lk 18.14) "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time." (1 Pe 5.6) From time-to-time, the call and warning goes out to the Church for people to get down low before the Lord...especially leaders. Some heed; some do not. As a consequence, some (like Pharaoh's baker in Genesis 40) disappear. You see, Christian leaders together are God's hedge around His Vineyard. It is not for individual trees to determine their position or height, or to exalt themselves over others. The position and height of the trees will determine the hedge's strength, and thus its capacity to safeguard Christ's Flock. God and God alone constructs and maintains His hedge. "A certain man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it." (Mk 12.1) "I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up." (Isa 5.5) "Whoso breaks a hedge, a serpent shall bite him." (Ecc 10.8) It should not come as some kind of devastating surprise if, from time-to-time, the Husbandman turns His pruning blade upon the hedge to purge it, and tame it, and thus strengthen it...especially immediately prior to harvest! Once again, God is calling upon leaders of the Church, in every part of the world, to "get low", because His blade is out and about to prune His Vineyard's hedge! It's time most assuredly to "get low"...sort yourself out, so He does not have to. Get off self-appointed and self-constructed platforms before He adjusts and corrects the situation. Graciously pre-empt Him by putting your own sword right through the heart of "my church...my ministry...my vision...my message...my destiny". (How some Christians and their leaders salivate over the demise of a politician they love to "hate", or a captain of capitalism they covertly envy. But, when the shoe is on the other foot?) If this be the Last Hour, then the stakes are higher than they have ever been throughout the whole of Church History. "The boar out of the wood" and "the wild beast of the field" are ever-circling the Vineyard, looking for a faulty or weak point, so that they can break through to "waste and devour"! (Ps 80.13) But God is ever seeking those who will strengthen the hedge, and "stand in the gap" before Him, for His Vineyard. (Eze 22.30) And He will surely obtain something much, much better than the "foolish" leaders of Ezekiel's day...crafty creatures, patrolling the ruins they've "built", in spite of their star-billing in the latest, greatest prophetical circus. And precisely because they are nothing more than foundation-less "apostles" and "blind" seers, they are failing in their pre-eminent and supreme responsibility to go up "to the breaks in the wall to repair it for the house...so that it will stand in the battle on the day of the Lord." Thus, His hand will be against such leaders, and they "will not belong to the council of my people or be listed in the records of the house." (Eze 13) And though their names once adorned glossy, glittering brochures, bill-boards and dvd clips, God's People may look and look, and search high and low for them, but "though you look with care where he used to be, he will not be found." (Ps 37.10) It's time to "get low"! "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." (Pr 16.18) "A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honour." (Pr 29.23) "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom." (Pr 11.2) Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:08:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/get-low/ Observing the Overwhelming http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/observing-the-overwhelming/ "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (Mt 5.17) "Jesus Christ the righteous...is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 Jn 2.1-2 &amp; 1 Pe 2.24) I want to make these observations, following the earthquake which overwhelmed Christchurch at 12.51 on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 22, 2011. I predicate my comments with the Apostle Paul's self-effacing disclaimer, "But to the rest speak I, not the Lord." (1 Co 7.12) (It might be worth considering nevertheless, that the Church has seen fit to include this particular portion of Paul's writings, within the Canon of inspired Scripture!) (1) Every earthquake, no matter how great or small, should provoke all Christians to remember that we live on a still-cooling planet, and on top of its very thin "crust"...a jigsaw of rocks which is slowly and endlessly being rearranged. Beneath this casing, there are incomprehensibly high temperatures and unbelievably massive pressures...constantly in a state of flux and activity. Rather than blaming or attributing an earthquake to God, we could always drop to our knees and give thanks to the Creator, that this planet has not before now blown itself into tiny fragments of space dust, as a result of the heat (about 5,500 degrees C), and the pressure (around 5 million times greater than our surface, atmospheric pressure) of the solid fireball which is our world's inner and outer core. (Our atmosphere catches fire and becomes a "firestorm" at a mere 800 degrees C.) "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed." (La 3.22) "(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God...For by him all things were created...in him all things hold together." (Col 1.15-17 &amp; Jn 1.3) "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining (upholding) all things by his powerful word." (Heb 1.3) In the light of Creation's physical reality, we should perhaps be amazed at the infrequency of major earthquakes in New Zealand. After all, we have chosen to dwell in a country on the margins of two colliding tectonic plates, where around 14,000 earthquakes can be recorded in a year! (2) Not only is an earthquake always a salutary reminder of how fragile and tenuous life on earth really is, and how untameable and unpredictable Creation's power. It is also a sign of just how desperately and urgently we need the Parousia of Christ our Lord and Saviour. For it will only be when Jesus physically returns to this world to reign from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, that mankind and nature will finally be completely set free from the destruction of the "law of sin and death". (Ro 8.2) "The creation waits with eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed." (Ro 8.19-22) "I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people...The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox." (Isa 65.17-19 &amp; 25) "At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Lk 21.27-28) "Christ...will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." (Heb 9.28) (3) It is also vital never to forget, that Jesus Himself unambiguously foretold that life here on earth immediately before His return would be turbulent - disturbed and disturbing. "Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." (Lk 21.26-27) "For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now - and never to be equaled again...for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened." (Mt 24.21-22) (4) While it must never be automatically (legalistically?) assumed that God is the author and cause of every calamity and disaster, nevertheless His great wisdom and power enable Him to bring forth good out of that which appears to us to be entirely awful. ..even evil! "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good." (Ge 50.20) "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes." (Ro 8.28) "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens...so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." (Heb 12.26-29) (5) Now... I want to say at this point, that I have been appalled and disheartened by the speaking of some people who claim to be "Christian prophets"! Why is it, that at any time of tragedy and calamity, there is always a sudden proliferation of such people...self-proclaimed and self-appointed oracles for the hour? Why is their prophesying so hasty (frenzied)? Why are their oracles so unbiblical, and even contrary to both the Words and the Spirit of the New Covenant? I urge all such people to be silent for sufficient time to ponder anew the infallibly true words of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ in Matthew 12.36 and 24.23-25, "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgement for every careless (idle, unprofitable) word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." "At that time...false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time." (6) The "judgement of God" is an important and integral part of the New Covenant. However, it is expressed and experienced entirely differently from the Old Covenant. Judgement in the Old was almost entirely about the preserving at all costs of one nation, Israel, in existence. This was an imperative for God, so that in the "fullness of time" (Gal 4.4) there would be a "family" for Israel's Messiah and the world's Redeemer to be born into. In the New, God's interest in Israel's ongoing existence is still one ultimate concern. But His judgement is now almost entirely about the instruction and correction of individuals (via the "law" of consequences...sowing and reaping! Gal 6.7-8) for their salvation. It is a life-time's process, in which He constantly labours for the greatest good of both the individual and the many. No one is expendable. There is no tolerable or acceptable level of collateral damage in the Kingdom of God or the Church. No one dies from so-called "friendly fire"! "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (Jn 3.17) "Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines (chastens and trains) us for our good, so that we may share in his holiness." (Heb 12.7-11) There may well be those "Christian" individuals whose lack of education or personalities move them to "prophesy" according to and under the Old Covenant. They ought to be fully aware that the Lord would be justified if He corrected them (for correction we all undoubtedly constantly need!) according to that Covenant they are speaking and acting out of. (Deut 13.1-5 &amp; 18.20) "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Mt 7.1-2) "Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes." (1 Co 4.5) In this regard, never ever, ever forget that the hands of the Lord which may rest upon us to chasten and correct according to the New Covenant, are themselves wounded with "the print of the nails". (Jn 20.25) (7) The Lord Jesus Christ Himself perfectly and definitively utters His verdict, concerning this vital and challenging issue...God's judgement under the New Covenant, "Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them - do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." (Lk 13.1-5) According to Dr. William Barclay (1907-78 and Professor of Divinity at Glasgow University), the Lord Jesus in our text "utterly denied" the automatic connection of sin and suffering, "in the case of the individual person". Dr. Barclay called this a "cruel and heartbreaking doctrine"! In this passage, the Lord is plainly stating that those who were killed in the (fortification) tower collapse in SiIoam, were no better nor worse than those who did not die. But in the same breath, He is also prophesying that unless His hearers receive him as Messiah, they too will perish in a comparable disaster. (His tragic warning and prediction was graphically fulfilled in the Roman sack of Jerusalem in 70AD, when the great city's walls were smashed down and its buildings flattened by the Empire's relentless killing-machine.) Dr. Barclay continues his exposition thus: "It means that we cannot say that individual suffering and sin are inevitably connected, but we can say that national sin and suffering are so connected. The nation which chooses the wrong ways will in the end suffer for it. "But the individual is in a very different case. (He) is not an isolated unit, and is often caught up in a situation which he did not make; his suffering is often not his fault; but the nation is a unit and chooses its own policy and will reap the fruit of it." (E.g. Hitler's Germany. All Germans - not just the Nazis - suffered through their country's bloody and bitter defeat!) "It is always dangerous," concludes Dr. Barclay, "to attribute human suffering to human sin; but it is always safe to say that the nation which rebels against God is on the way to disaster." (8) A disaster of the magnitude of Christchurch's, absolutely roars at us to listen to "hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev 2.7)...and to our beloved Aotearoa-New Zealand. In this regard it is absolutely essential that we first of all honour God, by obeying His Word, the Bible, "Give everyone what you owe him ...if respect then, respect; if honour, then honour." (Ro 13.7) "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honour one another above yourselves." (Ro 12.10) Now is the time to honour Him by honouring the apostles and prophets and elders of the Church in Christchurch. As those who are in other places, we should press our faces and our mouths into the dust, and earnestly pray for these, our companions "in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus" (Rev 1.9), that they may clearly see His face and hear His voice, in the midst of the tumult and horror and loss. For it is to such as these that God our Saviour will speak. And it will be through their hearing that we, all together, will obtain national succour, instruction and (if need be?) correction ...even chastening! "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." (1 Sa 3.9) "But the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper." (1 Ki 19.11-13) Let us pray! Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:23:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/observing-the-overwhelming/ First Things First http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/first-things-first/ "There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favouritism." (Ro 2.9-11) "These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel...I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves...When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes." (Mt 10.5-23) We know that the foundational Apostles did not complete their original and primary mission of "going through the cities of Israel", for the Son of Man did not return from Heaven during their earthly lives. Similarly, we know that the Church's endeavours to accomplish this apostolic task were violently interrupted and postponed by the Roman Army's destruction of Jerusalem in the late 60s. The siege left absolutely everything in ruins...including the city's seminal, Jewish-Christian Church, which was the mission's launching-pad. (Ac 15 Gal 1.18 &amp; 2.1-2) Rabbi Chaim Potok writes ("Wanderings - Chaim Potok's History of the Jews" Fawcett Crest NY 1978), "Jerusalem lay silent beneath a long, deadly night. The Jewish state came to an end. The Sanhedrin was abolished. The high priesthood ceased to exist. The Sadducean party disappeared. The Romans would not permit the temple to be rebuilt...From the hilltops of Judea one could see the hollow ruins of Jerusalem, ghostly in the summer sun and embowered with weeds and wild flowers after the winter rains." Nevertheless, this was not to be the conclusion of the matter. Matthew 10.23b, contains three crucial points of prophecy (and implies a fourth) which the Church is bound to address ahead of all other concerns during these Last Days. They are: 1) The Lord Jesus Christ is going to return into this world from Heaven, to complete and perfect His great work of salvation, which was initiated upon The Cross. (Ac 3.20-21 &amp; Heb 9.28) 2) A great awakening to Jesus as Messiah will sweep through The Land of Israel (city by city, and town by own) immediately before the 2nd Coming. (Jer 31.34) 3) This authentically national revival will be pushed through to its perfect completion ("all Israel will be saved"), literally by the Lord Himself, present in The Land. (Zec 14.4) 4) The Church's pre-eminent responsibility before God in these climactic days will be to "never cease crying aloud, day or night"; to "keep the Lord in remembrance"; to "take no rest, nor let Him rest neither, till He has restored Jerusalem, (and) spread her fame over all the earth." (Is 62.6-7) (The Church will only succeed in fulfilling this its final calling, by conceding and submitting to God's Biblical principle that we are to be concerned for "the Jew first"...and also by actually believing in practice that by toiling in prayer for a great awakening of the Jews, the Church will herself obtain "greater riches"; even "life from the dead"? Ro 11.11-16 ) One very great and compelling reason why we ought to strongly apprehend that we are deeply, deeply into the End Times, is the objective fact and reality that God has already historically reignited and propelled forward the stalled Matthew 10.23 apostolic assignment. This He did in the late 1960s...precisely and exactly 19 centuries after its "suspension"! (See Footnote) This rekindling occurred immediately after the 1967 Middle East Six-Day War with its "impossible" Israeli victory, and the consequent reunification of Jerusalem under Jewish jurisdiction and stewardship. And it has been made manifest and evident in the Messianic Movement in The Land...the first genuinely indigenous Jewish expression of faith in Jesus of Nazareth, since the days of the first Apostles. This Movement (which boasts at the very least 120 congregations today) is now actively fulfilling the Lord's original "through the cities of Israel" mandate. This great work of evangelization, which the Lord has re-commenced through these Israeli worshippers of Jesus, He will complete upon and by His return. Each of these consequent prophetical events is clearly mapped and spelt-out for us in Psalm 122: a) (Verse 3) Jerusalem is reunited and thus reconnected to its destiny to be "a city that is closely compacted together...where people come together in unity". (Between 1948 and 1967, east Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan.) b) (Verse 4) Then, the whole nation is restored to worshipping God, when "the tribes of the Lord, (go up) to praise the name ('thou shalt call his name Jesus') of the Lord." c) (Verse 5) And then, finally "there the thrones of judgement stand"...and are occupied by the Son of David and His 12 Apostles. "Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Mt 19.28) My message here unmasks erroneous beliefs and activities...and also demands alteration and correction: i) Are our Christian expectations Biblically ordered? Are we actually committed to proclaiming the Gospel of God's soon-coming King, or some trumped-up, Gentile-ish non-gospel of personal fulfillment, private enrichment, and self-aggrandizement? Is His promised return really our "blessed (highest) hope"? (Tit 2.13) And are we actually "intensely watching for and expecting" His reappearance and parousia? (1 Co 1.7 Php 3.20) ii) If we are in fact waiting for the 2nd Coming...is our disposition passive or active? Insofar as I've never once seen anyone lethargically drifting closer to God, similarly Christian "agnosticism" (on this subject!) and a general torpidity ("Wake me when He's back"!) is not going to draw the King of kings down out of Heaven. In fact the Apostle Peter exhorts us to not only "look forward to the day of God", but also to exercise ourselves and "speed its coming...do everything possible to hasten its coming"! (2 Pe 3.12) iii) The major way in which we can now "hasten" Jesus' return is by throwing our primary prayer-weight in behind the Israeli Messianic Movement's evangelization of The Land. (This ought to be supplemented by financial and moral support!) They alone I believe have the apostolic mandate to fulfill the Lord's "through the cities of Israel' prophetic decree. It is not just that they could do with the Gentile Church's help, or deserve our assistance...both spiritual and material. We really do need to get it into our heads, that when we favour beloved Israel ahead of ourselves, we are more like unto God who has said to the Jews, "To you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you." (Ac 3.26) And similarly, "It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you (the Jews)." (Ac 13.46) Historically the Church's anti-Semitism has clothed us with shame and public humiliation. But these Last Days hold for us a second chance to truly put things right and honour ("respect by giving preference and precedence to" Ro 12.10) those whom God first called "my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself." (Isa 43.20) By so honouring and preferring Israel we may yet throw off the dirty rags of our long-term religious ignorance and racism, and discover ourselves clothed anew with "much greater riches" of grace; even "life from the dead"...fiery, unending Spirit of Messiah revival, during which the raising of the dead becomes almost commonplace (Ro 11.11-16); culminating in The Day of Jesus' return when "the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." (1 Co 15.52) Our choice is really quite stark. We can go on relentlessly and perpetually pushing and shoving our spiritually obese, Western selves to the head of God's blessing queue. Or we can freely choose to step back, to prayerfully lose our place in the line, and thereby create grace-space for our older, Jewish brothers and sisters, "the lost sheep of Israel". (Mt 10.6) We have absolutely nothing to lose; in fact, more than we can presently imagine to gain. In the 1800s, the Scottish Presbyterian "missionary" to the Jews, Dr. Andrew Bonar, unequivocally asserted that when Christians stretch out a hand of care and benediction to Israel, "unspeakable blessings" are drawn down upon the Church. David Baron (1855-1926 scholarly Jewish Believer and friend of Theodore Herzl, the "father" of modern Israel) wrote, "The work of conversion (of the Jews) is always a work which only the power of God can accomplish." "But that does not mean," he said, "that the Church of Christ is to fold her hands as she has done for many centuries, and do next to nothing." Above all things, according to David Baron (who co-founded the "Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel" in London in the late 1800s) the Church's disposition towards Israel should be "an attitude of prayer". "Let there be the heart's desire and believing prayer unto God for Israel that they may be saved...The distant sounds of our Master's chariots are already heard, and Jesus Christ is coming quickly to render to every man according to his work...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?" "Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations...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...On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity." (Zec 12.2-3 &amp; 10, 13.1) "Coming up to them at that very moment, she (a prophetess, Anna) gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem." (Lk 2.38) FOOTNOTE: It is no coincidence that the late 1960s were a time of tremendous restoration for God's beloved Israel...especially the genesis of the modern, indigenous Messianic Movement. One of the ways in which the Lord reveals Himself in history is by symmetry of times and seasons. According to Rabbi C. Potok, "Recent scholarship has recovered some wispy fragments from the lives, movements, and settlement patterns of people in the ancient world that seem to place Abraham between the years 2000 and 1900 BCE." The 1960s BC? "He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers." (Lk 1.54-55) Wed, 02 Feb 2011 10:31:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/first-things-first/ Rising From The Dead http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/rising-from-the-dead/ "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells." (Ps 46.4) Two "streams" of Christianity were flowing in Britain in the 7th C. In 664 they collided, fatally, in Northumbria at the Synod of Whitby. One suppressed the other. The one which disappeared and has largely run underground for the past 13 centuries, is to be resurrected and become the Church of the Last Days. Salvation through the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ reached Britain whilst it was part of the Roman Empire. When Caesar's Legions withdrew in the early 400s, evangelization continued, but not from the European Church with its headquarters in Rome. It was, in truth, converted by the 4th C Church of the Desert Fathers and Mothers from Egypt. Much is made today, by some, of so-called Celtic Christianity, and its impact on Ireland, Scotland and the north of England from the 400s to the 600s. Modern scholars are substantially agreed, that there was in fact no such thing. What did exist was an expression of devotion to Jesus in that region which owed its existence and allegiance (not to the corridors of power in Rome), but to the extempore, holy abandonment of the desert hermitages of Egypt. (This point-of-view should be completely unsurprising, as the "descendants" of Egypt's Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers "wandered" north and west, to finally settle out on the extreme, western islands of Ireland. They believed absolutely that they had come to the end of the world, and by so doing they were hastening the return of Jesus who had promised, "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." (Mt 24.14) During that time, Christianity had developed there isolated from Europe (with its "rising power and growing organisation of Rome"), and not tied and tangled in the apron-strings of the State, and its political power and military might. The Celtic Church was a "loosely compacted" community of faith which drew its strength (not from bishops and their princely patrons), but essentially from prayer houses. It was an authentic "house of prayer"! (Mt 21.13) In so many respects, Celtic society had come by the 7th C to strongly resemble Egypt in the 4th and 5th Cs where, "There is no town or village which is not surrounded by hermitages as if by walls." At the Synod of Whitby, King Oswiu (in the tradition of the Emperor Constantine) presided over the assembly of Roman and Celtic clerics and monks. The items on the agenda were relatively minor (e.g. the "true" date of Easter celebrations?). The real issue was uniformity and conformity. The king judged, and found in favour of the followers of Rome. The Celtic contemplatives were commanded to conform. Some who did not were put to the sword...scalped! What was knowingly driven underground that day was a manifestation and demonstration of Christianity which believed that prayer (unceasing public adoration of God and intercession for the whole human race) was the Church's foundational task and main event. It was a mode of faith which depended upon communities of men and women of prayer, living in simplicity, purity and submission... (poverty, chastity and obedience). It eschewed bishops (papal edicts and excommunications) on be-jewelled thrones, propped up by local war-lords and robber barons. 900 years later, this "stream" of intercession was driven even deeper underground and further into hiding, during the reformation of the English Church, which took place (yet again!) at the point of a king's sword. Henry VIII had no qualms whatsoever in pursuing and prosecuting his vision of church, employing kangaroo-courts, bribed witnesses and the state executioner's lethal arts. It is a matter of plain historical record, that the contemplatives and their prayer houses received the most brutal and the bloodiest treatment at the hands of the king and his over-eager, lick-spittle lieutenants. (Their reward usually being the property which had once belonged to the suppressed prayer houses!) Why were they especially target-ed? Because the devil and his followers know that it's just so much easier to subvert and divert a church built on a foundation of reason (intellectual assent), and secular (corporate?) organisation and power. An authentic "house of prayer" Church should be an altogether different and more difficult nut for the antichrist to crack! The Desert Father upon his face is hard at work. The Desert Father tilling the soil, is deep in prayer. The ravens feed him. His applause is the deafening silence of the wilderness. His success is to hear huge drops of rain begin to plough, hissing, into the dust of Carmel...three and a half years drought-dried. You cannot threaten him with demotion, for he already jealously occupies "the lowest place". (Lk 14.10) You cannot threaten a Desert Father with excommunication, because he already lives "outside the camp"! (Heb 13.13) His greatest ambition is martyrdom. What power the visible Church has today, is largely dependant upon the use of force! That's why it has so little influence upon the surrounding societies it is charged with leavening. It usually maintains order largely and ultimately through threats and sanctions. The Church cannot be powerful (dynamic) by using force...and also be influential! One inevitably negates the other. In the Western Church today, the king no longer fires off drunken knights to decapitate "foul, turbulent, meddlesome" priests. We've stopped setting fire to heretics with tar-soaked faggots and gunpowder. But we have certainly devised a thousand different ways to oh, so subtly and craftily rid ourselves of a "troublesome" Elijah...a "depressing" Jeremiah...a "plotting" Amos. But whether it's done with a sword or a discrete phone call, a word in the right ear...it's still force, which is not influence. Force drives; influence evokes, awakens and calls forth. "Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope." (Mt 12.18-21) The Church of Constantine, Oswiu and Henry VIII may impress the world with its flash, velvet gloves...but inside lurk steel fists. The Desert Abbas and Ammas are unimpressive creatures to look at...tatterdemalion, starvelings and ragamuffins! Weirdos and half bonkers maybe? But they carried and guarded in their hearts the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ...unalloyed, undiluted, unedited. "A brother said to (the Desert Father) Poeman, 'If I see my brother sin is it really right not to tell anyone about it?' He said, 'When we cover our brother's sin, God covers our sin. When we tell people about our brother's guilt, God does the same with ours.' " "A demoniac, frothing terribly at the mouth, struck an old hermit on the jaw, and he turned the other cheek. This humility tortured the demon like flames, and drove him out there and then." "A hermit was asked, 'What is humility?' He said, 'It is if you forgive a brother who has wronged you before he is sorry.' " "A monk was told that his father had died. He said to the messenger, 'Do not blaspheme. My Father cannot die.' " ("The Desert Fathers" Transl. by Benedicta Ward. Penguin Books 2003) In the Last Days, the State will universally turn against the Church and Israel. The "king" will no longer be an ally and protector...but our adversary and persecutor. Our habitation is again going to be the desert and the wilderness...for some literally; for others figuratively. "Therefore I am going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor ('trouble') a door of hope." (Hos 2.14-15) "The people who survive the sword will find favour in the desert; I will come to give rest to Israel." (Jer 31.2) "I will bring you into the desert of the nations and there, face to face, I will execute judgement upon you...I will take note of you as you pass under my rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. I will purge you of those who revolt and rebel against me." (Eze 20.35-38) "Who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her lover?" (SS 8.5) "In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.' This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: 'A voice of one calling in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths for him.' " (Mt 3.1-3) At the end and consummation of this grace and salvation Age, the Church of the Desert (the "house of prayer" Church) will be reconstituted and reasserted over the Church of the Corridors of Power...and this of absolute necessity. Pharaoh's battalions were destroyed when they tried to pursue God's People into the wastelands. Rebels were "overthrown...their bodies scattered over the desert." (1 Co 10.5) But the very environment which ruined these, proved to be the place of Israel's preservation and salvation. There really is "nothing new under the sun". The knee-prints of the Desert Fathers and Mothers have been preserved for us "on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come". Let us go out to meet them there! "Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." (Ps 95.6) "I met a traveller from the holy desert, Honeycomb, beggarbread eater, lean from drinking rain that lies in the windprints of rocks." (Thomas Merton, hermit, 20th C) "The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent's reach." (Rev 12.14) Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:05:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/rising-from-the-dead/ Signs on the Earth http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/signs-on-the-earth/ "In the last days, God says...I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below." (Ac 2.17&amp;19) "I have sold even the word that commands me to sell all and give to the poor." (Desert Father, 4th C) "What is Christianity without the Cross?" (Desert Father, 21st C) During the 4th C, one of the greatest religious revolutions and movements ever experienced by the Church, took place. Up until that time Christianity had by-and-large been an urban and local church-based phenomenon and event. But during the 300s, in an occurrence comparable to spontaneous combustion, men and women who loved Jesus as their God and Saviour, sold all their possessions, gave away everything they had to the poor, and followed Him out into the nearest wilderness or desert. (Mt 19.21) There they sought to approach "light unapproachable", and interceded for the salvation of the human race. One of the most "popular" assembly points for these radical disciples was the desert of Egypt. Some lived alone in caves, not unlike wild animals; others gathered themselves into communities. They became known as the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers. Reports of their Gospel lifestyle and ministries range from the poignant, to the extremely other-worldly. For example: "A hermit said, The monk's cell is the furnace in Babylon in which the three children found the Son of God. It is the pillar of cloud out of which God spoke to Moses." "A hermit was asked how it was that some people said they had seen angels. He answered, Blessed is he who always sees his own sins." "A hermit said, If anyone says, 'Forgive me', and humbles himself, he burns up the demons that tempt him." It is not an exaggeration, nor is it extravagant to say that the pattern for this particular kind of Christian life (contemplative), forged by these men and women so long ago out in civilisation's wastelands, has undergirded and upheld the Church for the past (close to) 2000 years. Right now, this incredibly antique (and yet still influential) Move of God is experiencing an extraordinary revival, in precisely the same location where it was originally born. This Revival has been picked up on by TIME magazine, and Britain's "Sunday Times" newspaper which describes it as "a remarkable renaissance". The English journalist and author, William Dalrymple, in his book "From The Holy Mountain" (Henry Holt &amp; Coy, NYC), reports that one of the Egyptian monasteries which he visited "is bursting with young monks". "The same is true of many of the Egyptian monasteries...there has been a massive revival of monasticism in Egypt, and many ancient ruins, abandoned for hundreds of years, are being brought back into use." Remarkably, one of the major influences in this Revival did actually live for a number of years in caves which had originally been occupied by Desert Fathers in the 4th C. From his cave, Abouna Matta Al-Meskeen (Father Matthew the Poor, 1919-2006) moved into a crumbling monastery cared for by "six frail old monks...today it has 130" active brethren. Father Matthew has written: "Prayer is my food and my drink, my outfit and my armour whether by night or by day"...and..."For as much as our hearts are pure, God finds His rest in us." (Most interestingly, I understand that Father Matthew was in his turn profoundly impacted by an earlier, mysterious Desert Father. Abdel Messieh (Slave of Christ) appeared in the Nile Valley during the 1930s where he lived to pray in a cave. He mysteriously disappeared in 1965, during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem!) So, what meaneth this? Well, in my own mind this phenomenon of revival and restoration is clearly an earthly sign (Ac 2.17&amp;19), which powerfully makes (at least) these two prophetic points: 1) One of the major reasons for the original flight of the Desert Fathers and Mothers into the desert, was the (unwelcome for them) incorporation of the Church into the political, social and cultural Establishment of the Roman Empire, under the Emperor Constantine. Overnight, martyrdom ceased being the chief benchmark for Christian discipleship...and was replaced by doctrinal "orthodoxy", moral and social respectability, and the "christianization" and idolization of the pleasures and treasures of this world. The Egyptian monastic Revival is a frank rebuke to contemporary Western Christianity, drowning as it is in the mephitic stew of a "gospel" of material prosperity, cutesy-pie seeker-friendliness, and the carnal pursuit of sensual and supernatural experience! Christianity cannot be reduced to a shopping list of human needs and desires. It only prospers when it exists to please its Founder alone. Why should a Church be permitted to go on existing, when it does not truly live exclusively for our Head? 2) I do not believe that the Western (especially the Protestant) Church as it is presently constituted will be able to survive the Last Days, because (contrary to what is generally portrayed) it is actually founded on reason...which expresses itself in individualism, and endless sermonizing and organizing. It also lethally and tragically confuses emotionalism with authentic spiritual experience. Our Lord Jesus Christ plainly stated, "My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers." (Mt 21.13) (His statement clearly begs the question...If the Church is not a "house of prayer", what will it become? A place which is over-archingly concerned about wealth and power, above everything else?) God's House on earth (Eph 2.19-22) must be built on faith...which always and consistently expresses itself first and foremost in relational prayer, which is unceasing. The Egyptian Revival is an eschatological sign (concerning the 2nd Coming), which warns us against treating prayer as the curtain-raiser, before the main event. Whereas prayer (especially in the Last Days) has to be the main event...which also then inspires every good work, and through which God's grace is supplied to make each Godly assignment and enterprise possible and accomplishable. "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." (Lk 18.1) "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Lk 18.8) "Pray without ceasing." (1 Th 5.17) "They said that on Saturday evening Arsenius used to turn his back to the setting sun and stretch out his hands toward heaven and pray until, at dawn on Sunday, the rising sun lit up his face, and then he sat down again." (Desert Father, 4th C) "Prayer is the highest achievement of which the human person is capable." (Edith Stein, Carmelite martyr, 1891-1942) "To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world." (Karl Barth, Reformed theologian, 1886-1968) So far as the two prophetic signs identified in this essay are concerned, I doubt very much if anything of any genuine significance can now be done to reverse the deeply ingrained trend of Item One. However, Item Two must not be ignored or refused. The whole Church has to become, in some way, shape or form, a House of Prayer if it is going to survive at all, and fulfill its destiny in the Last Days. This is obviously not about suddenly upping-sticks and charging off to become Coptic Christians in the deserts of Egypt. But it is most certainly about growing where we have been planted. It is about turning today's Church onto its head, so that what is presently peripheral (prayer), becomes foundational. It is about marginalizing the current religious culture of power, fame and fortune...and subsequent lickety-spit, stopwatch-timed, performance-"liturgies". It is about thirsting for and then fully surrendering to the Holy Spirit of "earnest prayer, entreaty and supplication". For it is He whose gracious and powerful influence is going to save all Israel in history's extreme and final clock-tick. (Zech 12.10 &amp; Ro 11.26) Similarly, it will be His final, prayer-driven bending of the Church into conformity with His sovereign will, which finally and ultimately saves us too. We do not need to wait for guidance and permission from some glitteringly successful sage from elsewhere, before we transform the Church of Aotearoa into a House of Prayer. We need only to drop bone-crunchingly onto our knees, and there call out like little children, "Holy Spirit, prompt us When we kneel to pray; Nearer come, and teach us What we ought to say." (William Henry Parker 1845-1929) God help us all if we find this too challenging or inconvenient...and prefer the effortlessness of charging off all together to yet another jazzy conference, where overseas' ministry celebrities leave us once more with ringing ears and empty pockets? "These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." (Isa 56.7) "If anyone wants to pray, the demons try to interrupt the prayer, for they know that prayer is the only thing that hinders them." (Desert Father, 4th C) "All you need is a piece of bread and enough covering for the body. The less you have, the less you have to distract you from God. Do you understand?" (Desert Father, 21st C) Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:31:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/signs-on-the-earth/ Elijah's Tears http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/elijah-s-tears/ "His sip is never bigger than one tear-drop!" In an eastern European shtetl (a small town with a predominantly Jewish population), lived a little boy who was fascinated by Elijah's annual "visit" to his family's Passover celebration. During the meal, he it was who was sent to open the door of their home for the Prophet. But what intrigued him most of all, was the fifth glass of wine upon their Pesach table...Elijah's cup. "Why grandmother," he asked, "does Elijah not drink any of the wine from his glass? Does he really come to visit us at our table?" "Oh, my darling boy," his grandmother replied, "the Prophet does visit us, and he really does drink from the cup. But his sip is never bigger than one tear-drop!" I really appreciate this story, because it captures perfectly for me, the essence of "the spirit of Elijah"...and is so very different to, and at odds with what poses and parades as such today. All too often, contemporary "Elijahs" - both ministries and individuals claiming this role - are loud and proud; over-blown with too grand a sense of their own fitness and omniscience. "Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." (Ps 126.5-6) The "spirit of Elijah" is not about ministry success by any and every means - no matter how divorced from sacred Scripture or parodying (feeble imitation) worldly ways, values and contrivances. The Prophet's unction is all and entirely about reaping according to weeping; revival according to repentance; fruitfulness according to cross-bearing. "See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and plant." (Jer 1.10) "Elisha stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael felt ashamed. Then the man of God began to weep. 'Why is my lord weeping?' asked Hazael. 'Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites.' " (2 Ki 8.11-12) Understanding this, the truth and reality of the "spirit of Elijah", is of ultimate importance in these Last Days, because: "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes." (Mal 4.5) "For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. He who has ears, let him hear." (Mt 11.13-15) My own expectation is that immediately before the Lord Jesus returns to reign over all of the nations, the Church will be called out and upon to carry Elijah's mantle of "power", but will only be able to do this to the extent and by the measure that we have imbibed, and been suffused and mastered by the Prophet's "spirit"...his heart and essence. The core of this is authentic, cross-bearing broken-ness, which expresses itself in unfeigned, limpid, tearful humility. "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves." (Php 2.3) Like their God and Saviour, the Crucified, both Elijah and John the Baptist were men "of sorrows, and familiar with suffering" (Isa 53.3); similarly "despised and rejected by men". Such a prophetic life and profile stands in marked, stark contradiction to what is generally applauded and rewarded today...glory and gold; fame and fortune. Unlike so many contemporary, self-appointed oracles, Elijah and John were not spiritual bully-boys, bragging and crowing and posturing over the size of their ministries and bank balances! ("Fame is like a river," said 16th C English parliamentarian and philosopher, Francis Bacon, "that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things heavy and solid.") But Elijah is fashioned in the wastelands and margins of this world (and the Church). He is always being prepared in the knowledge that Carmel and Jordan's crowds will surely throng, and soon enough flock off, to be replaced by Jezebel and Herod, all "red in tooth and claw", baying and slavering for revenge and punishment. This friends, is the real world of ministry...unlike the fantasy land of glittering conferences, glossy magazines, and slick TV "church"! None survive the reality (nor deserve to), unless the flesh is first "broken upon the wheel" of God's kindly dealings. As the great 16th C Spanish Church reformer, Juan de Yepes Alvarez, so plainly himself lived and taught, "(Jesus) totally stripped and annihilated as though dissolved into nothingness...(did) purge all guilt and unite humanity to God...From this, truly spiritual souls may come to understand the mystery of Christ as the door and the way to union with God, and so realize that their union with God will be the more intimate, and the work they accomplish the greater, the more they annihilate themselves in their sensory as well as their spiritual parts for the sake of God...(Such a life) does not, therefore, consist in spiritual refreshment, delights, and feelings, but in the living death on the cross." "So he (Elijah) did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land." (1 Ki 17.5-7) "And the child (John) grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel." (Lk 1.80) "I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." (Jn 21.18) Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:55:00 +1300 http://www.revivalstreams.co.nz/elijah-s-tears/