Prophetic Insights
Prophet To The Nations
From time to time, at the conclusion of meetings, I am accosted by fervent folk (bright-eyed and bushy-tailed) who are eager to inform me that, just like Jeremiah, they've received the call to be "a prophet to the nations". (Jeremiah 1.5)
For the most part, I gather that they anticipate a life of excitement, jet-setting from country to country, being feted in packed meetings, always handsomely reimbursed, luxuriously accomodated ... and lauded as the oracle of the hour!
The difficulty is this; it's not what God called Jeremiah to do. Hence the prophet's lack of enthusiasm for the invitation. "Alas, Lord God..." (v6)
So what does God in fact mean when He appoints someone "a prophet to the nations"?
The word "nations" as it is employed here does mean people-groups living together in particular regions. But more than that it means the "uncircumcised". (From this has arisen the pejorative term for Gentiles ... "goyim"!) And this is where it gets complicated. Jeremiah certainly did prophesy concerning nations other than Israel ... Babylon, Egypt, Philistia etc etc. But the great bulk of Jeremiah's communication on behalf of God, was with God's People ... the circumcised.
So what particular point is the Lord making by calling the circumcised, the uncircumcised? He's warning the prophet well in advance, that the people he'll be told to prophesy to, are not going to want to hear him. There'll be few "Amens!", faint praise and heaps of indifference ... along with occasional dollops of murderous rejection.
"For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem ... 'Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart ...' " (Jeremiah 4.3-4)
"Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the sons of Ammon, and Moab, and all those inhabiting the desert who clip the hair on their temples; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart." (Jeremiah 9.26)
"You men (of the Sanhedrin ... the supreme Jewish council) who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?" (Acts 7.51-52)
In New Testament terms the call to be "a prophet to the nations" is not about ecclesiastical celebrity status and earning a stack of frequent-flyer points. It's about being willing to go on speaking the Lord's words - stark and unadorned - no matter what, to people who gave up listening a long time ago. It's about never stopping loving all those God loves, even when they start hating the preachers He sends. It's about remaining steadfastly indifferent to the fickle court of public opinion, and craving only the approval of the One who created heaven and earth.
"If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become My spokesman. They for their part may turn to you, but as for you, you must not turn to them ... And although this people fight against you, they will not prevail over you; for I am with you to save you." (Jeremiah 15.19-20)
Still hankering after being "a prophet to the nations"?
It's Time
I recently went to a Presbyterian church to preach, taking with me a carefully prepared message on the Book of Revelation. At the beginning of the first meeting a text for the Call to Worship was displayed at the front of the church. I realised as I read it that this was my sermon subject. I quickly prepared a fresh message during worship.
At the end of the meeting, the pastor who had led the service said to me, "I used that text this morning because I had a dream recently and a voice said to me, 'Remember Hosea 10.12!' "
This text is a word from God for New Zealand this year.
"Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you."
This prophetic word indicates something of the utmost importance concerning the next and last great awakening of the Western Church and Western Civilisation.
"Until He comes to rain righteousness (salvation) on you."
And it is this, that such awakenings (revivals, outpourings, visitations) are normally (like rain showers) geographical ... not local church and denomination-based, as has become the status quo in the past 100 years or so.
At the beginning of the first New Covenant revival, the Apostle Peter began his message, "Men of Judea, and all of you who live in Jerusalem." (Acts 2.14) He clearly envisioned God employing his message to impact Jewish society totally...not fractionally. A vision which was justified by the end of that singular day, with the salvation through Christ of "about three thousand souls". (v41)
 George Fox |
Later Fox's confrere, William Penn, recounted, "He (Fox) saw people as thick as motes in the sun, that should in time be brought home to the Lord, that there might be one shepherd and one sheepfold in all the earth."
During the First Great Awakening in Britain in the 18th C, huge crowds mysteriously gathered together in market towns several days before John Wesley actually made his (innocent) decision to preach in those places. At the same time the Presbyterian Church of Cambuslang on the outskirts of Glasgow, found itself besieged during Quarterly Communion by hordes of the hitherto irreligious. For weeks on end they refused to return to their homes, preferring God above all else.
And later, during the 1940's Lewis Awakening (northern Scotland) it was reported to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, "The presence of God was in homes, meadows, moorland ... even public roads. The supreme feature of this God-sent revival (was an) awareness of and fear of God. Seventy five percent (awakened) were gloriously saved before meetings."
"And it shall be in the Last Days that I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all mankind ... before the great and glorious Day of the Lord. And it shall be, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Acts 2.17-21)
It is an irony deserving our investigation that modern Christians much prefer local church revivals to geographical awakenings. They are seriously out of step with the Holy Spirit and history. Could it be that modernity has dangerously over-inflated many ecclesiastical egos, to that point where many can only conceive of Almighty God at work within the frame of their glittering programmes and ministries?
No man, no message, no movement is going to come within a bull's roar of containing or managing a national revival. It's going to take the whole Church to carry the whole anointing required to save the whole nation.
No doubt the Cambuslang Presbyterian Church's minister was un-nerved (even humiliated) to find himself overwhelmed by a besieging and uncontrollable congregation without number. But I believe he swiftly learned a profounder emotion; the joy of witnessing and participating in the sovereign, unfathomable and irresistible work of our omnipotent God.
Had A Great Fall
During the final week of April (07) I dreamed that I was looking at a tower, as high as any big-city skyscraper. It was build of stacked pallets of fresh-sawn timber. The higher the tower grew, the more unstable became the uppermost pallets. I said to the onlookers, "Those on top will fall!" The highest, unstable pallets of timber shifted and moved for a time, and then one plunged down to earth. As it hit the ground, everything and everyone was shaken by the impact.
"(The Mighty One)...has done mighty deeds with His arm; He had scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, and has exalted those who were humble." (Luke 1.51-52)
"You are ... of God's household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone." (Ephesians 2.19-20)
"For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all...we are without honour...poorly clothed...homeless...we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things." (1 Corinthians 4.9-13)
"But many who are first will be last; and the last first." (Matthew 19.30)
In the Western Church today a culture of death has arisen among some leaders. It exalts the exaltation of Christian leaders, and is utterly divorced from and devoid of the Holy Spirit of Christ. This culture treats Christians as little more than commodity-like, building blocks in the hands of ego-driven men and women. They care more for the construction of platforms upon which they can sing and dance, than for the building up of Christ's Body here on earth.
God says that all such will fall down!
And the Bible says (texts above)that the major, identifying mark of genuine apostles and prophets (leaders) is their willingness to be buried with Jesus in the Church's foundations, and with Him there to bear the burden and provide stability for those "living stones ... being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood." (1 Peter 2.5)
And when Paul the Apostle writes (1 Corinthians 12.28) that "God has appointed in the church, first apostles", he does not mean "first" as in hierarchy, "top of the heap", "big boss". He means that apostles are the first to be buried with Christ in His ministry, and who thus live deepest within and bear the greatest burden and weight in His Church's immense foundations.
God's foundation stones are created to carry the Church. The Church without such foundational strength will be toppled by the first, significant spiritual storm to hit it.
The Church which is expected to carry its "super stars" on its roof will collapse beneath an unholy burden. It will also be humiliated by the spectacle of their "great ones" being brought back down to earth by the Lord with a noisy and very public crash!
This culture is an offense to the Lord, who "although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2.6-8)
Note Well: Equally obnoxious to God is another "church" culture ... that of scorn for leadership and the dishonouring of Christian leaders. Foundation stones who crush living stones, and living stones who treat foundation stones carelessly or contemptuously...are equally detestable and reprehensible.
"Be devoted to one another in brotherly love, giving preference to one another in honour." (Romans 12.10)
"Let the elders who rule well be considered of double honour, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching." (1 Timothy 5.17)
Cracking The Code
It has been said that the Bible's Book of The Revelation is "the playground of religious eccentrics", and that it either "finds a man mad, or leaves him mad"!
The great Protestant Church reformer, Martin Luther, wanted it to be left out of the Bible altogether. However the gruff Presbyterian, New Testament scholar, William Barclay (Scotland 20th C), wisely counselled, "We shall doubtless find this book difficult and bewildering. But equally doubtless we shall find it infinitely worthwhile to wrestle with, until it gives us its blessing, and opens its riches to us."
His sentiments are entirely in accord with the Holy Spirit's, expressed in The Revelation,
"Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near." (1.3)
"And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book." (22.7)
The Revelation's difficulty is also its key for unlocking. Many approach to interprete it as a "christian" book...which it is, and which it isn't. It is a "christian" book, insofar as it is "The revelation of Jesus Christ" (1.1) and is contained in the NT Canon. But it also is not a "christian" book, because it is first-and-foremost and uniquely Jewish.
As William Barclay has pointed out, The Revelation is "written exactly on the Jewish pattern" of numerous post-OT and pre-NT "apocalypses". "Apocalyptic Literature was (uniquely) the product and result of an undefeated and indestructible Jewish hope," he has said.
 John the Apostle |
The key and most potent Jewish symbol in The Revelation appears in three places...most significantly at the book's actual centre. (Revelation 12.9 is the book's centre by verse count.) At the beginning of this chapter there appears "a great sign...in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars".
Who is "she"? The Roman Catholic Church sees Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus. Protestants by-and-large believe they are viewing the Church...especially in the Last Days.
But what does the Bible itself have to say about this woman?
In Genesis 37.9, Joseph dreamed that "the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down" to him. His father Jacob (who became Israel) immediately understood that this dream was about him and his family.
"Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come and bow ourselves to the ground before you?" Jacob asked, sounding somewhat irritated. (37.10)
The woman is Israel, and we need to understand that God's Jewish People are, so far as He is concerned, His "great (prophetic) sign". Speaking of His own return and preceding events (Luke 21.25) the Lord Jesus said, "There will be signs (attesting miracles) in the sun, moon and stars." What could be more miraculous and public than Israel's endurance for the past 2000 years, the reconstitution of the nation-state of Israel, their survival of the onslaught of the 1948 War of Independence, and the 1967 restoration of Jerusalem to Jewish jurisdiction and care?
So chapter 12 gives us an extraordinarily panoramic view of the history of God's Jewish People from beginning to end. (By the way, Revelation 12's position in this book also puts paid to any notion that this Apocalypse can be interpreted chronologically.)
And how does it end for them? Well, certainly not as so many Christians today arrogantly believe, around 70 AD with the destruction of Herod's Temple. Israel's history continues long after Calvary, and ends not in assimilation or annihilation. It ends in the total victory described by the Apostle Paul in Romans 11.25-26,
"Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved ..."
And this is precisely what is pictured in The Revelation 12.13-14,
"And when the dragon (satan) saw that he had been thrown down to the earth (after Jesus' victorious ascension into Heaven), he pursued the woman (historical anti-semitism) who had given birth to the male child (Jesus). But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished ..."
The eagle here is not the USA, as some rather nationalistic preachers are presently claiming. According to the Bible the eagle is God who saves,
"You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." (Exodus 19.4)
"He found him (Jacob-Israel)in a desert land ... He cared for him ... Like an eagle that stirs up its nest ... spreading out its wings ... bearing them on His pinions, the Lord alone guided him ... He suckled him with honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." (Deuteronomy 32.10-13)
This exclusively Jewish icon of the "sun, moon and star" appears in two other places in The Revelation.
The first (6.12-13) appears when the Lord breaks the sixth seal of the "scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals". (5.1)
"When He opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake (collision of massive, opposing forces), and the sun became black as sackcloth (mourning for the death of a loved one), the full moon became like blood (murder), and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree (Israel) sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale (out-of-control force)."
In very broad (impressionistic) terms, at the breaking of the scroll's seals I believe we are witnessing the long-term, historical consequences of mankind's failure to receive Jesus as Lord, Saviour and King. Events at the breaking open of the sixth seal portray the ugly history of anti-semitism and the fact that at the end God will judge this with unparalleled fury.
"Hide us...from the wrath of the Lamb" cry "the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful..." (6.14-17)
Immediately after the appearance of this key icon and interpretative marker-post, another potent symbol of Israel springs off the page...the 144,000 (7.4) which represents the fullness of Israel saved by Jesus and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
As in Revelation 12, Israel's history is here again portrayed as one of long-term, heart-breaking suffering which culminates not in shame and death...but rather in glorious salvation and eternal life.
The second appearance of our key sign is in Revelation 8.12, "The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck (violence), and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night."
The blowing of the seven trumpets is God's prophetic countdown through the days prior to His Second Coming. What is portrayed here is chilling for three reasons in particular,
- This passage speaks of the 20th C Holocaust in Europe, in which at least one third of the world's Jewish People were systematically murdered by decree of the government of Hitler's Germany. A searing account of a childhood spent in Nazi death camps was bluntly titled by its author Elie Weisel, "Night"!
- This sign gives a clear and unequivocal date to plot onto the prophetic countdown represented by the seven trumpets. The Holocaust occurred during the 1930s and 40s.
- After the Holocaust, God Himself cries out over the whole earth a message of the utmost gravity, "Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, 'Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow.' " (8.13)
We are living in those days...between the blowing of the fourth trumpet and the seventh, which itself is the last and which heralds the arrival of the King of kings, "In the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as He announced to His servants the prophets." (Revelation 10.7)
"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 forever and ever.' " (11.15)
By way of confirmation of the above, the employment of the icon of "the sun,moon and stars" to represent Israel in the Last Days also occurs in the Prophet Joel. Before the arrival of "the great and dreadful day of the Lord" Joel predicts that "the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood". (2.31) And further he prophesies that when "the day of the Lord is near...The sun and moon will be darkened, and the stars no longer shine." (3.14-15)
But as is also uncovered in The Revelation, Joel similarly foresees a glorious conclusion for Israel, "The Lord will...thunder from Jerusalem...The Lord will be...a stronghold for the people of Israel...Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her...In that day...all the ravines of Judah will run with water...Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem through all generations. Their bloodguilt which I have not pardoned, I will pardon. The Lord dwells in Zion." (Joel 3.14-21)
Now, read on (out loud) and be blessed! Now that's a promise.
Overwhelming Power
I dreamt last night that I was standing on the sand at a huge beach; the water's edge was far away and the water was intensely blue. In spite of the distance, I was able to see a headland and observed huge waves breaking against its rocks. I realised that these waves were going to reach me, far up the beach. When the waves did arrive, they were overwhelmingly massive and powerful. Like a massive storm-surge, they engulfed the whole beach. The waves caught me and carried me at a great height towards the edge of the sand and the land. When the waves broke against the land, I was thrown out and into the air. But I did not land on the ground; I fell back into the sea.
The 20th C has been typified by wave upon wave of the Holy Spirit breaking over the earth. His 1990s outpouring signalled the beginning of the end; the start of His final effusion. What can we do now, but pray, "Come, Holy Spirit".
Personally, I am grateful that this last great awakening is never going to recede, and we will never again find ourselves beached or left high and dry. Waves of the Lord's glory and power will continue to roll in and go on beating against the citadels of sin and empires of evil, until they are all demolished and until He takes His Throne on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
"Times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord ... that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you." (Acts 3.19-20)
"I will open rivers on the bare heights, and springs in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land fountains of water." (Isaiah 41.18)
"And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall." (Matthew 7.26-27)
Of Theocratic States?
Is it the plain Will of God for Christians today to work and pray to create theocratic states and cities? There are believers who hold emphatically that it is.
For a few months in the 1600s, England teetered on the brink of being a theocracy; a state governed directly by God according to His Law (contained in the Bible), via His (human) "anointed vessels".
After the execution of King Charles I, the abolition of the House of Lords, and a series of purges of the House of Commons, in 1653 the devout Puritan, gentleman farmer, Oliver Cromwell became the "Lord Protector" of the "Commonwealth" of England. He governed as a monarch in all but title and crown, for "the people's good, not what pleases them".
His original vision was astonishingly liberal for those times. "I had rather that Mahometanism were permitted amongst us, than that one of God's children should be persecuted", he said.
 Oliver Cromwell |
The Cursing Act provided for the fining of foul-mouth adults, and the whipping of little swearers ... those under 12 years-of-age. Fornicators faced 3 months in prison, and adulterers the death penalty.
This noble experiment failed for many reasons ... but for two in particular,
- According to Professor Schama "the experiment in enforced virtue was a dismal flop ... because of the impossibility of supplying the manpower to police it".
- God was not in it. "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchmen keep watch in vain." (Psalm 127.1)
At the same time as sin and vice were under attack from Mr. Cromwell's "divine" dictatorship, so also was religious liberty. The Quakers' (Society of Friends) founder and leader, George Fox, found himself frequently detained in unbelievably squalid prisons for being "a menace to public peace". There he might be urinated and defecated upon by his goalers. One of Fox's followers was convicted of blasphemy in 1656. His tongue was bored through with a hot iron, and his forehead branded with a "B" for blasphemer!
So, all was well in this garden of eden? Yeah, right!
Oliver Cromwell was a good and godly man; but the same cannot be said for all his works. The dead bodies of his foes (and sometimes his "friends") littered his blood-soaked "way of the Lord". (Matthew 3.3)
How could his holy vision of "a free and uninterrupted passage of the Gospel running through the midst of us, and liberty for all (except Roman Catholics!) to hold forth and profess with sobriety their light and knowledge ..." go so terribly wrong?
Because, while it was very likely God's work he undertook, he did not carry it out in God's way. It took two clergyman from the Church of England which Cromwell did not regard fondly, to show the way to convert "carnal England to a state of godly submission".
Within 100 years, sin and carnality in England began to shudder and subside beneath the tidal wave of revival preaching that flowed out of the mouths of the Revs. John Wesley and George Whitefield during the First Great Awakening.
"My aim," Wesley proclaimed, "is to reform the nation, particularly the Church, and to spread Scriptural holiness over the land." And this he did with "power from on high" (Luke 24.49) ... not through the barrel of a gun or parliament.
And for those who failed to grasp this eccentric Oxford scholar's vision, he continued, "Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, desire nothing but God, and care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the Kingdom of God upon earth."
Bodies littered the ground in their thousands at Wesley and Whitefield's huge, outdoor meetings. But these people had not been killed. They fainted beneath the sheer heat and force of Gospel messages from men who truly believed they preached not only for the eternal salvation of individual men and women, but for the divine destiny of their nation.
Some secular historians have concluded that the blood-bathed French Revolution of that time was not able to hop (plague-like) across the narrow English channel, because the First Great Awakening had so altered English Society from top to bottom for God and for good.
The present infatuation of some Western Christians with the building of theocratic states and cities is like the proverbial path paved with good intentions; it leads to "hell". That certainly is the testimony of 17th C Ireland, where Cromwell and his "salvation" armies perpetrated "one of the most infamous atrocities in the entirety of British history". And according to Professor Schama "the most damning witness against Cromwell is Cromwell, who makes no bones about his deliberate intention to perpetrate a slaughter so ghastly that it would dissuade other strongholds from making Drogheda's (a rebellious Irish town) mistake ... refusing peaceful capitulation".
Similarly tragic is the testimony of the Rev. John Alexander Dowie. This most remarkable and inspirational Scottish Congregational pastor was undoubtedly a genuine 20th C apostle ... especially of healing. But he ended his days abysmally; living in his theocratic city (of Zion) near Chicago, delusionally attired as an Old Testament high priest, and of the view that he was the prophet Elijah!
"And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God (to have God in knowledge) any longer, God gave them over to a depraved (void of judgement) mind, to do those things which are not proper." (Romans 1.28)
"For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God." (Roman's 10.2-3)
A Dire Dearth
"For when the earth experiences Thy judgements the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness." (Isaiah 26.9)
"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives." (Hebrews 12.5-6)
There is a line of "thought" abroad in some parts of New Zealand's Christian Community today which states that current decisions being made and laws being created by our Parliament will bring the judgement of God upon us as a nation.
Allow me, strenuously, to put before you another (more Biblically and historically accurate) viewpoint. It is that our present dolorous state-of-the-nation (including farcical parliamentary machinations let by the present Labour Government) indicates that we are already experiencing the judgment (chastisement with a view to correction) of the Lord.
And this is because of our (the Church's) failure to embrace Heaven-sent, national revival during the 1990s.
I am well aware that few Christians (even leaders of that Revival) are prepared to explore this particular path of enquiry. Nevertheless, our forefathers in the Faith were not so scrupulous or squeamish.
Puritan thinkers anticipated consequences for the nation they perceived was Reformation-shy. "God will bring some heavy affliction upon England and that speedily. But He will provide a shelter and hiding place for us and ours", they said, whilst taking flight for the (as yet) unspoilt American colonies.
They interpreted England's cruel and bloody Civil War of the mid-1600s as being the consequences they predicted and the Lord's chastening judgement. And (for them) the terrible portent of that war had been a tornado which scythed a path through southern England. It tore open the graves of plague victims, scattering bodies scarcely in the ground for a year.
Early in the 20th C, the pioneers of modern Pentecostalism interpreted the First World War as being God's judgement upon the religious Establishment's summary rejection of the Holy Spirit's Last Days' restoration of His Baptism and Gifts. At that time a national council of churches conference in Germany formally rejected the Welsh and Azusu St. Revivals.
It is clear to me that the bulk of Old Testament prophecy targeted God's Covenant People ... rather than the world or the surrounding nations. Why? Because God had ordained that where Israel went spiritually and morally, so followed the nations.
"Thus says the Lord God, 'This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the centre of the nations, with lands around her.' " (Ezekiel 5.5)
"So keep and do (God's commandment), for that is your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the Lord our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgements as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today." (Deuteronomy 4.6-8)
And so it is in our day. As God's New Covenant People (the Church) go, so follows the world and the nations.
"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people." (Proverbs 14.34)
Ancient Israel was never called upon to rave or rail against the surrounding world's sins, and nor are we. Their destiny was, and ours now is to so shine forth the Light of God's Law and Glory that the nations' paganism (spiritual, moral and intellectual darkness) would be dispelled. And to the extent that Israel walked in that Light they were empowered to illuminate others. And it's exactly the same for the Church today.
So what really lies at the root of our present-day Christian frenzy to fulminate with such ferocious self-righteousness against "evil" prime ministers and "antichrist" parliaments?
A dire dearth of spiritual integrity!
There are Christian leaders in New Zealand today, still happily going about their "business", who ruthlessly opposed, stealthily put the handbrake on, and unashamedly manipulated and "milked" for their own selfish ambitions The 90s Revival. And now we are all living with the consequences. And on top of that, weirdly and pathetically some are dumping the blame on "them" ... the "unrighteous".
"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap." (Galatians 6.7)
The law of sowing and reaping (in both the natural and spiritual realms) is as immutable as gravity ... and equally inescapable!
Dead Prophets Talking
Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives." (Deuteronomy 5.24)
It is difficult to imagine anything more important in the Christian life than hearing God speak to us. Upon this our faith and obedience hinge completely.
"So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." (Romans 10.17)
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life..." (John 5.24)
" ‘Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.’ For who provoked Him when they had heard? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient?"
But is our listening and our hearing really comprehensive enough and thus sufficiently acute? It is my belief that our hearing must at the very least be "quadrophonic"! Which is to say we ought at all times to be listening to the Lord speaking to us by,
- The Bible. (2 Timothy 3.16-17)
- The Holy Spirit's "inner witness". (Romans 9.1)
- Those God has appointed to oversee our lives. (Hebrews 13.7 and 17)
- His prophets. (Amos 3.7)
It is my view that the Western Church at this time is weakest on point four. (Although it has to be said with great sadness that point three runs a very close second!) First of all, we are quite immature, fickle and feeble at recognising "His prophets" ... as opposed to the latest prophetic "rockstars" momentarily elevated to papal status along with their new-fangled and faddish oracles.
But where we are weakest (to the point of paralysis) is in our failure to listen to God speaking to us through those who prophesied a long time ago. Although they are now physically dead, their words are still alive because they contain the Word of God, and still carry the unction He was pleased to charge them with all those centuries ago.
"For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword ..." (Hebrews 4.12)
"And through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks." (Hebrews 11.4)
All too often and swiftly we can unthinkingly allow the phrase "church history" to turn us off and away from usually dusty pages where nevertheless these long-forgotten prophets wait patiently for us to listen to their words which are as alive today as they were at the time of their earthly ministries. They are like Elisha's corpse; in the eyes of the world, dead and buried...but so far as God is concerned, powerfully anointed and so "alive". "And when the (dead) man touched the bones of Elisha he revived and stood up on his feet." (2 Kings 13.21)
I go so far as to say, that someone claiming to be prophetic who is uninterested in and unstimulated by church history disqualifies himself automatically from this ministry. If you are devoid of passion and curiosity concerning God's word already declared, why do you for even one split-second believe I will ever be convinced that you have reverence for His yet to be uttered words?
Some of God's heroes and heroines of the past have spoken to me in His name so piercingly and so poignantly that I do consider them my friends. Allow me to introduce you to a few of them.
When confronted by Christians today who talk as if they alone discovered or "invented" prayer, the Apostle Patrick (Ireland, 5th C) reminds me that "in a single day I have prayed as often as 100 times, and in the night almost as often. I used to rise at dawn for prayer in snow, frost and rain because of the glow of the Spirit." And I hear the Abbot Benedict (Italy, 6th C) exhorting his monks across Europe that if they wished to pray more, to do so secretly by themselves. Let them "in all simplicity go in and pray. Not with a loud voice, but with tears and an attentive heart."
When disturbed today by "born again" folk who boast about their financial wealth and material prosperity as if that was the length and breadth of the Gospel, I overhear my old friend Francis of Assisi (Italy, 13th C) praying, "Jesus, you were very poor, and I want to call nothing under heaven mine, but only to live on what others may give me." And then I watch him tearing the roof of the house some of his followers built in rude disobedience to his vision of living like God's creatures of the fields and meadows. And my older brother John Wesley (remarkable revivalist, England, 18th C) thunders his "Amen" by declaring, "If I leave behind me ten pounds, you and all mankind bear witness against me that I lived and died a thief and a robber. Any Christian who takes for himself more than the plain necessaries of life lives in an open, habitual denial of the Lord. He has gained riches and hellfire."
 John Wesley |
When pulpiteers deliberately intimidate and suppress God's flock with their theological degrees and "higher" learning, the formidable Jerome (Rome, 4th C) who translated the whole Bible into the then common tongue of Latin declared, "I have revered always not crude verbosity, but holy simplicity". And the mighty reformer of the Church, Martin Luther (16th C) who translated the Old and New Testaments into his native tongue German, bluntly asserts, "A poor serving girl, if she has the Holy Ghost, is as well able to understand the Scriptures as the pope himself". And he is unequivocally supported by his Scottish confrere, John Knox (16th C) who taught his porridge-loving parishioners, "Believe God, that speaketh plainly in His Word. And further than the Word teacheth you, you shall neither believe the one nor the other. The Word of God is plain in itself, and if there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy Ghost, which is never contrarious to Himself explains the same more clearly in other places." All of this is brilliantly summed up by the irrepressible Smith Wigglesworth (England, 20th C), "Some people read their Bibles in Hebrew. Some in Greek. I like to read mine in the Holy Ghost."
And for those who want to put God in a box and who shudder at His sovereignty, hear Thomas Aquinas (Italy, 13th C). He spent his whole life formulating one of Christianity's most comprehensive systems of theology. At the end of his life he was granted a mystical (direct) glimpse of the glory of the Lord. He then said, "Everything I have written seems like straw by comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me." He never taught or wrote again! And in a similar vein of radical open-ness to our great God, John Robinson (17th C) a pastor to the Pilgrim Fathers wrote, "The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word. The Lutherans refuse to advance beyond what Luther saw, while the Calvinists stick fast where they were left by the great man of God, who saw not all things." In this regard I give the last word to the incomparable George Whitefield (England, 18th C), "If I see a man who loves the Lord Jesus in sincerity, I am not very solicitous as to what Communion he belongs. The Kingdom of God, I think, does not consist of any such thing."
And finally a fragment of black humour for those who too readily confuse niceness with holiness. During the often violent tumult of the Protestant Reformation in Europe (16th C) the Roman Church turned its big-guns on to Martin Luther, describing him as "that pestilential fart of satan whose stench reaches to heaven." Unshaken and not to be outdone in the employment of colourful language, Martin fired back, "Let us wash our hands in the blood of the Roman sodom." And for those with no sense of humour at all, listen to the mystical Teresa of Avila (Spain, 16th C) yelling as she floats down a river after falling off her mule, "If this is how you treat your friends Lord, it's little wonder You have so few!"
I hope that these few lines may provoke you to seek out and listen to some of our fascinating and fantastic older, prophetic brothers and sisters. You will not be disappointed.
"This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!" (Matthew 17.5)
Delay is not Denial
Our "instant" and "quick-fix" Western consumer society is jeopardising the integrity of genuine prophetic communication. All too often in our day, a prophetic word is given "the flick" if it does not provide immediate gratification, or does not come to pass speedily. Also if the job is not being done according to resident expectations a replacement prophet is often drafted in.
Consider, if you will, the following statistics. Jeremiah prophesied 70 years of chastisement from God for His backsliding People. (Jeremiah 25.1-13) This prophecy was fulfilled...but not until 89 years had gone by.
Isaiah foretold (Isaiah 44.28) that a chastened Israel was going to be restored to God and The Land; this would be decreed by a Gentile king, Cyrus of Persia. Isaiah’s prediction was indeed true...but it "dragged its heels", so to speak, for 163 years.
Delay in the fulfillment of prophecy is not automatically a denial of its validity. God works according to timetables very, very different from our own ... of even the most enlightened and sanctified among us.
"But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as 1000 years; and 1000 years as one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness ..." (2 Peter 3.8-9)
"For 1000 years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night." (Psalm 90.4)
Late last year the deposed dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was executed with indecent haste by hanging. I "saw" two things that week,
- The "Christian" West missed possibly its greatest opportunity ever to preach the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Muslim world, by failing to extend mercy to a man who showed no mercy to anyone, anywhere, anytime in his entire life.
- I "saw" something akin to burning phosphorus or napalm falling on the United States of America. This material clung to and burned everything it fell upon. It burned to the uttermost.
I was very disappointed by the first insight; but aghast at the second. In fact I was so appalled, I just buried the image. Apart from anything else, I did not want to be perceived as anti-American. I honour the USA as God did when He transplanted the Protestant Reformation there via the Puritan pilgrims. I also honour America for being a driving-force in world missions, especially during the 20th C. Further I honour America for owning and pressing forward the Pentecostal-Charismatic Revolution during the 1930s and 40s when it was so bitterly persecuted by the religious establishment.
But then, what you "see" is what you see!
 William Branham |
"I saw this United States burning like a smolder; rocks had been blown up. And it was burning like a...a heap of fire in logs or something that just set it afire. And (I) looked as far as I could see and she'd been blown up."
At the very least I hope that these visions will provoke decent men and women of Christian goodwill everywhere to fervently pray for the United States of America and the Church in that great nation, especially along the lines of Psalm 143.10-11,
"Teach them to do Your will, for You are their God. Let Your good Spirit lead them on level ground. For the sake of Your name, O Lord, revive them. In Your righteousness bring their souls out of trouble. In Your loving kindness cut off their enemies, and destroy all those who afflict their souls. For they are Your servants."
Amen and amen.
A Fair Go
A few days ago I was away across the sea at the Orama Christian community on Great Barrier Island. I was there to teach a few shards of Church History at a convocation called "Sojourn 07". While there I dreamed one night that I was looking up a road. To my right was a fire station. On my left a row of very old Pohutukawa trees (the New Zealand Christmas tree!), with heaps of new shoots and their brilliantly red flowers. As I watched, a rather old fire engine came roaring out on its way to a fire. But as it did so it crashed through the trees, uprooting and scattering them.
Here is a warning for 07. We need to be very, very careful we don't allow traditional and imported Christian theologies and methods of mission and evangelism to crash over the top of exciting, new, indigenous evangelistic "sproutings" here. One definition of madness is to keep on doing the same-old, same-old, believing something different is going to happen. To date, none of the good-old, tried-and-true methods of evangelism and church growth have worked with anything other than the mildest success. But we keep on ploughing with the same old gear. To what end or purpose?
I suspect the major consequence is that experimental initiatives get mashed up before they ever have a chance to get started, let alone bear fruit.
"No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." (Matthew 9.16-17)
In the language of the Kiwi, I believe the Holy Spirit is simply asking the Church in Aotearoa to give Him a fair go!
PS While we are on the subject of local versus imported...once again Aotearoa is being tramped by the usual summer-holiday flock of overseas ministries. On my really bad days I find myself wondering if they are here just to tell us how to serve God in our own backyard, or hoping to give their suntans a boost as well?
