Prophetic Insights
Doctrine of Darkness
"It is precisely because change is so swift that we need history." (Inga Clendinnen, Australian historian)
As I have already said elsewhere, I continue to be flummoxed by the quite violent reaction against my preaching about Israel in these Last Days...especially from leaders of the Pentecostal Movement. It strikes me as being somehow or other different to the predictable opposition of Evangelicals. Their antagonism is a dry, intellectual assertion of historical and denominational Replacement Theology...that ancient and all too current belief, that when God's People Israel rejected Jesus, He rejected them in exclusive favour of the Church.
Pentecostal opposition has an added dimension of virulence and rancour which is more spiritual than rational. I now believe that this hostility is in fact demonic, and has its roots in something "taught by demons"...British Israelism or Anglo-Israelism. I do not intend getting bogged down in the varying, minute details of this belief, but in the crudest terms, BI asserts that when the Assyrians conquered the 10 Tribes of the northern Kingdom of Israel (circa 700BC), these people fled to Europe, coming to rest finally in (what we now call) England, and transmogrified into the Anglo-Saxon Race.
Hence a committed BI exponent (and founder of the modern-day faith-healing movement) John Alexander Dowie, at the dawn of the 20th C could vigorously and unapologetically preach, "I gladly record my profound conviction that every prophesy God said would be fulfilled in the national Israel is being fulfilled in the Anglo-Saxon Race today."
This belief conveniently and entirely overlooks the Bible's testimony contained in both Ezra and Nehemiah, that when God's Old Testament People were released by their Persian overlords to restore their Temple in Jerusalem (circa 536-432BC) they were Israel.
"Now these are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken captive to Babylon...The list of the men of the people of Israel." (Ezra 2.2)
In fact, at that time some were excluded from the restored priesthood in Jerusalem because "they could not show that their families were descended from Israel." (Ezra 2.59-63)
(In all, "Israel" is employed and linked to God and His People at least 61 times in Ezra and Nehemiah, at the very time when Israel - according to BI proponents - was en masse on its way to become Anglo-Saxony living in England.)
The plain testimony of Scripture and history is that at the time of their absorption into the Assyrian Empire, the 10 "lost" Tribes did not in fact get lost. Many were deported north into the Assyrian heartland...but some fled south to the Kingdom of Judah, while others kept on "running" to Egypt. By the 1st C, Egypt had a total population of 1 million Israelites. The Old Testament was translated into Greek in Alexandria, because of the size of its Greek-speaking Jewish Community. (It is reckoned that when the Lord Jesus was born, there were more Hebrews living in Alexandria, than in Jerusalem!)
To these plain facts must also be added the "apostolic" verdict. For the Apostles Peter and Paul the terms "Israel" and "Jew" were not exclusive, but actually inter-changeable...covering all of the descendants of all of the 12 Tribes. In other words, the terms "Jew" and "Israel" then covered all and any of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, irrespective of their tribe.
"Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd. 'Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem...Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles...' " (Acts 2.14 and 22)
"Paul answered, 'I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia...' " (Acts 21.39)
"Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I." (2 Corinthians 11.22)
British Israelism is not just one of those quaint, human myths which has England being visited by the Lord and certain of His Apostles. Such exist and have given rise to the likes of William Blake's famous poem and hymn, "Jerusalem", with its beautiful (but brain-fevered) lines,
"And did those feet in ancient times
walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?"
It is impossible from a human point of view to get to the root of BI. It can be glimpsed momentarily here and there since Reformation times, but finally bursts out full-blown during the zenith of the British Empire and Queen Victoria's reign. It is a theory which is denied by biblical and historical evidence. And yet during the early years of the 20th C it shaped or shaded the prophetical teaching and eschatology of almost an entire generation who were the founders of modern Pentecostalism. E.g. John Alexander Dowie, Charles Fox Parham, George Jeffreys, FF Bosworth, John G Lake, Arthur Dallimore.
(One notable exception was Smith Wigglesworth, who wrote a letter to church leaders in New Zealand advising them to steer clear of this teaching!)
Well...so what? Do we really need to go on some kind of "witch-hunt" and exhume the corpse of this discredited doctrine? Unless we do return to the "scene of the crime", we will never identify, bind and cast out the power of that spirit which is behind this and is still working towards it original, vile goal...the destruction of the Jews and the obliteration of Israel. (The devil's insane equation is ever the annihilation in toto of the Jews, to prevent Christ's return to a spiritually and physically restored Israel.)
This demon manifests itself in history as anti-Semitism, but its real name is "antichrist", for its whole aim is to oppose and overthrow the Lord Jesus as our world's rightful King of kings and Lord of lords.
"Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour...Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ (Heaven's anointed King of this world). Such a man is the antichrist - he denies the Father and the Son...Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist...Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist." (1 John 2.18,22; 4.2-3; 2 John 7)
antichrist lurks with malevolent and putrescent influence behind:
* All teaching which in any way, shape or form down-plays, down-grades, mocks or negates/opposes the non-negotiable centrality of the promised, consummatory 2nd Coming of Jesus Christ.
* All teaching that excludes national Israel from the blessings of the yet to be completely fulfilled Covenant promises of the whole Bible.
I am particularly concerned to target with gusto British or Anglo-Israelism on this occasion, because of the timing of the waxing of its influence over a nascent Pentecostalism. It is a sad phenomenon to consider. At the very time when satan was winding up to employ Hitler and his degenerate and villainous disciples to seek to murder to their complete destruction God's Blessed Israel...white, Anglo-Saxon Pentecostals were off looking at themselves in the mirror. Some were in fact preaching expectation that King Edward VIII of England would declare himself the last of David's Line, establish the Kingdom of God on earth via the British Empire, so that Jesus would be able then to return. In fact Edward VIII scorned the Crown. He apparently preferred the pleasures of an American socialite, to the perfection of the Parousia.
This crazy nonsense is utterly risible...but it was swallowed hook, line and sinker or flirted with by uncomfortably large numbers of our Pentecostal forbears. And in their error and blindness they failed to identify, cry out over and struggle against an assignment of satan which very nearly succeeded...the destruction of Israel in the Holocaust. This raises contemporary issues which are of extraordinary importance and concern:
1) Being Pentecostal, Charismatic, "Spirit-filled", etc etc does not automatically ring-fence us against deception...no matter how "spiritual" we might be; no matter how blatantly bizarre a given idea.
"They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful (fatal) delusion so that they will believe the lie..." (2 Thessalonians 2.10-11)
I think that there is a peculiar and dangerous kind of smugness which falls on us when we judge ourselves to be spiritually enlightened and "advanced". Not only is there the ever-present risk of sinning by looking down on those we deem not of the "cognoscente", and hence not "one of us"! But there is the hazard that our very eagerness (and competitiveness?) for "more light", actually makes us vulnerable to the machinations of cranks and charlatans, as well as deceiving spiritual powers.
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6.12)
2) Before Jesus Christ returns to a spiritually and physically restored Israel, satan will launch one final, demented onslaught unto annihilation against the Patriarchs' beloved Children. he will fail utterly; rather the tables of destruction will be turned against him. (Revelation 20.1-3, 7-10) And God help those who align themselves with his pestilential campaign and not against it...especially Christians. Believers are going to be vulnerable to pressure in the Last Days to step back from Israel, as its position (from a humanistic and socio-political point-of-view) becomes increasingly unpopular and marginalised. This will not therefore require us to claim black is white. But we will be constrained to stand with and for Israel (People and State) come what may, and defend their right to exist, provide human aid and succour, and most importantly, unrelentingly pray for their salvation, preservation and the complete fulfillment of their divine destiny.
Any residual anti-Semitism (no matter how vague or dilute) which might be lurking in or around us, will prove to be deadly dangerous when this happens, because even the flimsiest fragment of this pernicious dogma will be sought out for use as a platform and plinth by and for antichrist's final, frenzied stand and onslaught.
"Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully." (2 John 7-8)
"For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death." (Romans 7.5)
"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit will reap eternal life." (Galatians 6.7-8)
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them...Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit...Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (Matthew 7.15-20)
British Israelism is not just some eccentric and antiquated teaching still being clung to and pushed by a few eccentric fuddy-duddies. It's something "taught by demons". It's bent, and it's bent upon destruction. It richly deserves therefore to be "cut down and thrown into the fire"...today.
An Essential Solitude
"I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top." (Psalm 102.6-7)
"And the daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a watchman's hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city." (Isaiah 1.8)
Writing of his own vocation to serve the Lord as a hermit, the Trappist prophet Thomas Merton, spoke of the "paradoxical, tormented solitaries for whom there is no real place".
He said that these men and women "have not so much chosen solitude as been chosen by it". They "have not generally found their way into the desert either through simplicity or through innocence. Theirs is the solitude that is reached the hard way, through bitter suffering and disillusionment." He went on to explain that "the real wilderness of the hermit is the wilderness of the human spirit which is at once his and everyone else's. What he seeks in that wilderness is not himself, not human company and consolation, but God.
"In this solitude and emptiness of his heart there is another, more inexplicable solitude. Man's loneliness is, in fact, the loneliness of God."
God's greatest compaint against the officially sanctioned prophets to Judah (and Israel) in the days of Jeremiah, was that He "did not send" them, yet, "they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied." (Jeremiah 23.21)
"The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries (things of nought) and the delusions of their own minds (the deceit of their heart)." (Jeremiah 14.14)
To be appointed, spoken to, and sent by God must logically and inevitably lead to a high degree of a peculiar solitary-ness (even isolation) for the authentic prophet. His allegiance is first of all to God...thus there is a necessary, creative estrangement from mankind. His is the "hermit...desert" ministry...his "skin" is charred and his "lips" burnt by the environment which forms him, and yet constantly seems about to overthrow him. His home is not in this current world. He does not require the permission of the religious police to speak. But more than anything else, he does not trust and recoils from popularity, adulation and applause! (I am not here referring to or approving of that which is false or bogus, and thus deserving of the strongest reproof and rebuke from that which is true!)
If what I have just said is true, then we in the Western Church are in a deep, deep ditch of our own digging. This is because the "prophetic" is today celebrated, "prophets" are celebrities belonging to blocs and coteries, and "prophetic" swarms jet from convocation to conference, panting and salivating for yet juicer morsels of "revelation".
"For the time is coming when people will not tolerate wholesome instruction, but having ears itching for something pleasing and gratifying, they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold, and will turn aside from hearing the truth and wander off into man-made fictions." (2 Timothy 4.3-4)
Let me press this matter further, and say that by-and-large those people and organisations which presently pride themselves, and are regarded by others, as being the prophetic elite and creme de la creme, do not have room in their vocabularies for such words as "separation", "wilderness", "solitude" and "reproach"! Why? Because the pseudo- (supposed but not real) prophetic intuits that the desert means its death...and that's precisely how God has planned it.
"Judgement shall dwell in the wilderness." (Isaiah 32.16)
"But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted." (1 Corinthians 10.5)
"But with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?" (Hebrews 3.17)
"At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him." (Mark 1.12-13)
"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." (Hosea 2.14)
"They shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods." (Ezekiel 34.25)
"They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and water gushed out." (Isaiah 48.21)
"This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spoke to him on the mount Sinai, and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give to us." (Acts 7.38)
"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time from the face of the serpent." (Revelation 12.14)
Being solitary is one of the most dangeorus things imaginable for a Christian, who is called (non-negotiably) to be "the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." (1 Corinthians 12.27)
As the venerable mystic and theologican, Juan de Yepez (John of the Cross, Spain, 16th C) has observed, "The virtuous soul that is alone and without a master, is like a lone burning coal; it will grow colder rather than hotter. Those who fall alone remain in their fall, and they value their souls little since they entrust it to themselves alone."
Yet, a peculiar kind of solitary-ness will be in the foundations of the reality of life for the authentic prophet. Isolation weakens and can "destroy" Believers. But it forms, tests and proves the prophet. If the fake, fraudulent or synthetic goes out into the desert, it will perish. If that which is bona fide, valid and legitimate does not enter into solitude, then it will decay into phoney-ness, and will surely expire also.
In his message "Jeremiah - Prophet of the Last Days", Art Katz (a pre-eminent prophet of the 20th C) spoke incisively and poignantly about this necessary tension and suffering, which the authentically prophetic must be permanently immersed in. Art talked (first-hand) of the genuine prophet being "a real anomoly...a round peg in a square hole...an odd-ball!" He is charged with announcing good news and bad news, all of which is usually unwelcome.
"The irony and paradox," Art said, "is that what is most intented for the good of the people is construed by men in their fleshly minds as being intended for their harm." The prophet will be seen as "an enemy and as a traitor". Being "one of the boys" is not possible.
Art recounted how he had once asked "one of the prominent prophets of today" why he wasn't invited to this man's prophetic get-togethers, "because my history in this calling goes back far before you ever began." The reply he obtained was not unexpected: "We know that Art. The reason you're not invited is you're not an 'in-house' prophet. You're not one of the boys, and your words may not fit in comfortably with the consensus of the kinds of things we speak, where we reinforce and confirm one another."
Living as an existential and integral part of the Body of Christ, and yet being simultaneously set apart (even sometimes estranged...at odds) from its members is "a kind of martyrdom," according to Art. And it is "not momentary...it is continued. This is the isolation, the rejection, the sense of strangeness that is characteristic of true prophets. This they have to bear as a mild form of suffering. Their martyrdom begins long before their final martyrdom."
Hence, Art pointed out, Jeremiah is regarded by some Bible scholars as a martyr, even although the nature and manner of his death is not known.
(Note: The pseudo-prophetic is usually more interested in the "martyrdom" of its audience and the object of its criticism...rather than its own humbling and absolutely necessary holy "death"!)
It is of the utmost importance that a prophetic life lived adamantly within this tension and reality be understood by the Church, acknowledged by those whose spiritual ambitions are misguided and disordered, and embraced by the legitimately sent. Such ones must never cease to view themselves as practical and affectionate, moment-by-moment members of His Body. But their office will repeatedly prove itself by banishing them out and into the wilderness. This is the very milieu ordained and created (and for a season inhabited) by Jesus Himself, to confirm their legitimacy and ensure their survival. And yet it will test them to within an inch of their natural and spiritual life. They and the People of God will always be to some degree unsure of exactly what the prophetic is up to and if it's all actually really okay. But by this very real and painful, and mutually experienced, mysterious condition, God will keep us all close to Himself and like unto Him, who is perfect in His lowliness and humility of heart!
"Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends...When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty. I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation.'" (Jeremiah 15.10 & 16-17)
"And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come." (Hebrews 13.12-14)
Waves Roaring
Towards the end of February (22nd), I dreamed that I was in a rickety, little bach-crib which was perched high up on a cliff, looking down into a deep-water bay. The sea was being churned up by a massive storm. The waves which were being driven from every direction simultaneously, were clawing their way up the cliffs and tearing trees out by the roots. The little house was wind and weather-blasted...but secure. This violent scene was however over-laid with and contained a kind of beauty, which I took to be the very Presence of God.
"There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea." (Luke 21.25)
The context for this verse, is the Lord describing events in history during that period which immediately precedes "that time (when) they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." (Verse 27)
He is predicting a time in history when the whole world and all of its nations and societies (all at the same time) will be caught up in natural and socio-political upheaval and turmoil...tending towards chaos, anarchy and destruction. Roaring seas and strange tides, which exceed their usual boundaries! Global disturbances and threats, which the nations united cannot prevent or manage or fix!
And the counsel of God for these circumstances?
Jesus says, "When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Verse 28)
Clearly from the Lord's perspective, these days are not for running away and hiding (E.g. Buying guns and storing cans of baked beans?). Nor is it time to hit the ejector-botton (E.g. Put your whole life on hold in anticipation of a pre-tribulation Rapture?). Clearly, He sees this moment in history as being an opportunity, an hour, an occasion, a chance for hitherto unseen acts and deeds of redemptive power, to be unleashed all over the world by God through His Church.
"Revive Thy work, O Lord:
Thy mighty arm make bare;
Speak with the voice which wakes the dead,
And make Thy people hear.
"Revive Thy work, O Lord:
Give power unto Thy word;
Grant that Thy blessed Gospel may
In living faith be heard."
(Hymn 679 PCNZ)
We are not called to crouch down in hiding until the storms of life and the Last Days have blown over. We are called to get up onto our feet and prepare for action.
"Your people shall be willing in the day of your power." (Psalm 110.3)
"Gird up your loins like a man." (Job 38.3)
"You therefore gird up your loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command you." (Jeremiah 1.17)
Nor are we called in these days to avert or close our eyes, disappearing off into an internet-fuelled fantasy-land of glitzy, mendacious preachers with their cutsy-pie messages and accompanying mood-music! We are in fact called to look long and hard and steadily at our crashing and burning and sinking world. Then we'll be enlightened and able to see Heaven-sent and Heaven-indicated opportunities and plunge into the melee and maelstrom, carrying His redemptive power.
"He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever - holy and awesome is his name." (Psalm 111.9)
"O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full (plenteous) redemption." (Psalm 130.7)
"There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people - everyone whose name is found written in the book - will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever." (Daniel 12.1-3)
And finally, what of the rickety, little hut on the cliff's edge? That's us...the Church, His Body, the "tatterdemalion" People of God! And we are all called to be just plain and honest and simple folk...not smart, not particularly impressive in the eyes of the world, never meretricious! (1 Corinthians 1.26-29) And we are who we are because of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ...and He has decreed and promised that wind-buffet-ed and weather-beaten though we be...we will stand until the end.
"On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." (Matthew 16.18)
"Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand." (Romans 14.4)
Far From Over
During the night of December 12-13, I dreamed that I was on a street in the business-section of a large American city. Companies were being auctioned in a "fire-sale"...virtually given away, at bargain-basement prices because they were worthless. I then witnessed first-hand one such sale, but afterwards felt very uneasy, as I realised I had observed an event that was supposed to be secret and hidden from "outsiders".
"When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, 'Come!' I looked and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, 'A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!" (Revelation 6.5-6)
In spite of the "best" efforts of politicians and commentators to downplay the seriousness of the current world Recession...it has not peaked and is not now waning. Nor is it behind us, as some in positions of power and influence are intimating, speaking in terms of "the Recovery" of 2010.
This Recession is going to continue and widen and deepen. The world's economy may from time-to-time "lift", but such "recoveries" will only lengthen (not halt) a long, slow and irreversible death-glide. This really ought to come as no surprise to anyone, because this world's economies are based on satisfying the greed and avariciousness of social elites, at the expense of honestly addressing the day-to-day realities of ordinary human need. This condition God has ever judged, with the singular ferocity of a good Father.
"Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat? - skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. The Lord has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: I will never forget anything they have done. Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn?" (Amos 8.4-8)
The four coloured "horses" of Revelation are not an exclusively End Times' phenomenon. They existed and were active in the days of Zechariah (1.8). Throughout New Covenant history they have been the "ministers" of the consequences of life lived in hostility to, and independently of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. E.g. Tyrannical government, internecine warfare, economic corruption and ruin, fear of death and judgement to perdition.
As the close of this Age draws near, these consequences will inevitably intensify...most notably national economies will fail one after the other, and the international community will be incapable (in some instances unwilling!) of effecting any kind of "rescue". At this juncture individuals and societies will begin to earnestly look for a "saviour"! Some will turn to the Lord. Tragically, others will fall into the sinister embrace of "the beast"...as happened by way of dress-rehearsal in Nazi Germany.
"And I saw a beast coming out of the sea (the nations - Daniel 7.2-3). He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound (Germany?), but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. Men worshipped the dragon (satan) because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshipped the beast and asked, who is like the beast? Who can make war against him? All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast - all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." (Revelation
13.1-4,8)
The Great Depression of 1929 plunged Weimar Germany into an insanely wild cycle of hyper-inflation. Hitler promised a people for whom paper-money had ceased to have any meaning or power, a scapegoat (Jewish bankers) and "salvation" if they made him their "lord". He came to power in 1933.
The appearance of the "black horse" in Revelation 6, teaches us three things in particular,
1) "Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand."
One of the great truth-themes of the Bible is that every action does in fact have a consequence...contrary to current, liberal social theory. "Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (Galatians 6.7)
In this instance, we are reminded that God has made it abundantly clear to Israel (and thus to humanity) that one repercussion of sin is famine and food-rationing...most especially of the absolute necessities. How can it be otherwise if we consistently treat the Creator as non-existent, and His Creation as something to be contemptuously plundered?
"If you will not listen to me...if you abhor my laws...When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight." (Leviticus 26.26)
"Behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care (anxiety); and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment (despair)." (Ezekiel 4.16)
2) "A quart of wheat for a day's wages."
Hyper-inflation is a judgement of God, especially in the sense that it is a consequence of a society determinedly ignoring His law of "sowing and reaping", and living beyond its means. It is really a form of insanity to persevere in believing (as the West presently does) that our consumption can neverendingly exceed our production. Such an over-stretched system finally does have to "break" under the strain, and truth-reality reassert itself.
Here the Apostle John foresees a situation at the End in which "a man's working wage would have to be spent in buying enough corn for himself for a day...he would be left with absolutely nothing for his wife and family, if he was a married man." (The Daily Study Bible: William Barclay DD)
Historically at such times of chastening and judgement some men have turned to God for help...others have railed against Him and simultaneously embraced that one who has ever been the jealous hater and destroyer of humankind.
"Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, Go, and pour out the seven bowls of God's wrath on the earth...The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were scared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him." (Revelation 16.1&8-9)
3) "Do not damage the oil and the wine."
Here lies a very great and wonderful promise of God, in the midst of apparent desolation and destitution. Oil and wine are products of the olive tree and the grapevine; both standout symbols of those People who belong to God, through their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
"You, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root." (Romans 11.17)
"I am the vine; you are the branches." (John 15.5)
But observe, the "voice" does not say, "Do not damage the olive tree and the grapevine"? It is the oil and the wine which are not to be "hurt", when everything else to do with the economies of men is going haywire and self-destructing.
Oil and wine come into existence after a (usually) lengthy and costly process, and the finished product is significantly richer than the raw material. I.e. Grape-juice, as compared to skillfully blended and carefully aged wine!
I do believe that lovers of Jesus, who are committed to a life-time, lifestyle of sacrificial discipleship, obedience and service will be provided with the tools and resources for miraculous survival during the End Times. Even though we may be shut-out of this world's financial and economic system, we will be enlightened and empowered to hook-into the economy of Heaven...immediately and via His earthly Body of Messiah.
"During the forty years that I led you through the desert, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God." (Deuteronomy 29.5-6)
"He guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night...Men ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat." (Psalm 78.14&25)
"The ravens brought him (Elijah) bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening (during famine), and he drank from the brook (during drought)." (1 Kings 17.6)
"You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don't you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? (Twelve) Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? (Seven)" (Matthew 16.8-10)
"Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets! When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink." (Luke 5.5-7)
"And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4.19)
Setting in Order
For some weeks now I have been more intensely concerned than usual to see local churches "in order", so far as their leadership structures are concerned. This is not merely "academic" or "technical" interest. I am clear that as we enter more deeply into the Last Days, the Great Tribulation promised by the Lord (Matthew 24.21&29) is going to bite more and more fiercely and deeply. The "pressure" and "stress" of this is going to be felt most keenly by those whom God has appointed to "watch over" His Flock. For too many leaders, too often in New Zealand, local church leadership is viewed pragmatically...work with whatever seems to work, and hope "she'll be right"! And similarly, far too many Christians appear to have no practical concept whatsoever that they are really accountable to the Elders of the local church they are attending!
(A down-side of the pentecostal-charismatic revolution of recent decades, is the ignorant and dumb notion that Christian freedom is a license to "do my own thing" without consideration or reference to anyone else, because, "This is what God told me"!)
To that end, I have been setting the following before those churches which I have visited and preached in over the past month or so.
"The Head of every local church is Jesus. Ephesians 5.23 states plainly that 'Christ is the Head of the Church, His Body, of which He is the Saviour.'
One aspect of Jesus being our Saviour today, in the here-and-now, is His leadership of us, not only as individuals, but as an 'ecclesia' or assembly. His rule or government of us as a Body is through Elders. Such people are a team of Christians who are mature in their faith (presbuteroi...depth of experience...Acts 14.23), who are gifted and anointed by the Holy Spirit to watch over us (episkopoi...depth and breadth of vision...Acts 20.28).
Paul wrote to Titus in Crete reminding him that he had left him there to 'straighten out and set in order what was left unfinished' in planting the Church, and 'appoint elders in every town', as he had directed him. (Titus 1.5)
Such teams of Elders have a leader, who is usually in our context and day the whole church's senior minister, senior pastor or senior leader. (I note that around 100AD, the Church in Antioch had one such senior leader called Ignatius, who led a team of Elders!) This structure and dynamic we glimpse in Acts 15, during a crucial meeting of Apostles and Prophets and Elders in the Church in Jerusalem. At the end of their prayers and discussion, James the Apostle announced the conclusion of their deliberations with the words of verse 19: 'Wherefore my sentence...my judgement is...'
Authority in local church life is delegated by Jesus Christ to that Eldership which functions by faith in Him along these lines. It is neither political, nor is it mystical.
Hence, that meeting of leaders in Jerusalem was able to couch its decision in such sublime terms as, 'It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us...It is the Holy Spirit's pleasure and ours.' (verse 28)
That is why the Holy Spirit says in Hebrews 13.17, that we must 'obey (our) leaders (literally those who govern, lead and guide), and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.'
But, to whom do such Elders give this account? Who must they answer to concerning their rule over His children, who He has rescued at the price of His own life's blood, and anointed with the holy oil of His Spirit? Of course, it is to their Head, who is also our Head...the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, when a Christian associates with or joins a local church, they are thereby committing themselves into the care and the protection of the oversight of mature Christian leaders.
What shall we say if for some reason a Believer loses their confidence in an Eldership's capacity to watch over us and lead us and guide us, on behalf of Jesus? What are we to do then?
1) We fly to our knees and pray for them and their aid. So, if there is a need for some remedy, we can be assured that the Saviour of the Church will administer the necessary strong medicine.
2) Under no circumstances do we seek to alter or usurp, that which is Christ's and Christ's alone to renew or correct or reform or (Heaven forbid) depose!
I am completing my thirtieth year as a full-time minister of the Gospel, and I do continue to put my faith in Jesus, who is the Head of the Church, to do this. I beseech you in His Name, to likewise trust him.
However, if you should find yourself unable to so live, then there is no condemnation. But you do have a duty to yourself and those who depend upon you, to seek a geographical solution, by searching for that new place of safety and security. You need to find that congregation where you can joyfully and affectionately and wholeheartedly accept and receive the oversight of a properly constituted local church Eldership.
There may be an occasion or a time when Jesus will find fault or take issue with an assembly's Eldership. That will quite simply not be your affair...but, it should be your concern and your burden; a concern and burden you should positively address upon your knees.
Pray for your Elders. Always pray for them. Never cease to pray for them, so that they, and therefore we too, may become all that Jesus suffered and died and rose again to make us."
What Will You Do?
A view of the world in which one part is comprised entirely of "angels", and the other populated only with "devils" is the creation of infants "mewling and puking in the nurse's arms"! Sadly, today many Christians seem completely content with such a paradigm. It's just a fantasy. But it does lead to dangerous conclusions, deluded decisions, and destructive activities.
Such judgement of the 16th C and its Reformation of the Church is one very good example of this kind of carry-on and caper. There are still Protestants and Catholics today who believe themselves "licensed" to mock and knock anything they perceive or imagine to be the "opposition". Whereas in fact, the truth is that there were (and are) saints and sinners, sages and fanatics, both sane and daft, on both sides of this religious divide.
There are but a few, short steps from parochialism to sectarianism to cultishness! Each in varying degrees and ways denies one of the Bible's core principles and values...the basic unity of the People of God,
"How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head...there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore." (Ps 133.1-3)
"Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit - just as you were called to one hope when you were called - one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Eph 4.3-6)
The denial (or even the diminution!) of this unity effectively "amputates" certain members out of the Body of Christ, and thereby we rob ourselves and others of the particular richness of His grace which those saints have been chosen to gift to us.
During the latter years of his turbulent reign, King Henry VIII of England executed (willy-nilly?) both Protestants and Catholics. His rule began with an apparently sincere concern for matters divine, but undoubtedly ended in a blood-spattered explosion of self-interest and self-preservation.
With great pathos, historians have recorded Protestants and Catholics arguing their way to their place of execution, as to who was going to be the "true" martyr? Such madness aside, it is now quite clear to me that during those chaotic days, both of the "warring" parties could legitimately lay claim to certain of their adherents having truly and sincerely laid down their lives for Jesus Christ and His Gospel.
One such was the Christian hermit, John Houghton (1487-1553) of London. As a bright and devout young man he had studied law and divinity at Cambridge University and obtained doctorates in both disciplines. He chose to turn his back on academic fame and professional fortune by joining the Carthusian hermits, thus devoting himself to a life of perpetual worship of God and prayer for others.
John's community was widely respected because of the holiness and wisdom of its members, and probably for this reason was target-ed by Henry VIII as a potentially significant ally. At this point in his "wild" reign, the king was seeking by all and every means possible to assert his absolute authority over the Church as well as the State.
The Carthusians of London were asked to pledge with an oath their allegiance to the king as the "supreme head" of the Church of England. They consulted the Holy Spirit and their own consciences for three days, and then declined to so swear. They "could not take the King to be supreme head afore the Apostles of Christ's Church".
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." (Mt 6.24)
In an attempt to intimidate his people, Henry VIII (after a show-trial) had the prayer community's leaders (including John Houghton) "hanged, drawn and quartered". This strategy blew up in the king's face, as the men died with great faith and dignity.
After he had been hanged by his neck with a rope until he was almost dead, John was cut down and disembowelled while still alive. His executioner then held up the hermit's still-beating heart before his face, and the martyr prayed, "Good Jesu, what will You do with my heart?"
This prayer - most likely learned as a child - cuts to ribbons many modern-day, evangelical-charismatic mores. For John did not in his extremity cry out, "What are You going to do for me, God?" Nor did he pray, "Look Lord, at what I'm doing for You." His supplication, which silenced a city mob more used to baying for blood, was that of a child of God completely and unconditionally abandoned and surrendered to the sovereign and (more-often-than-not) wholly mysterious Will of God!
Should the Lord tarry (and I desperately hope that He does not!) then I believe that we will be remembered by Church History as the "me, not Thee" generation. Because if we are not caterwauling to have our every little, last need met according to the "prosperity gospel", then we're pushing and shoving as hard as we can go to be noticed and known, feted and applauded on the grotesque cake-walk of Christian ministry celebrity-ism!
In New Zealand recently, both the Church and the State's hearts have been exposed. Public figures from both estates have proclaimed (some actually with a modicum of embarrassment) their addiction to money-power and conspicuous consumption. Their hearts have been drawn out before our faces and put on public display. Ought we to be concerned? Yes,
massively so! Because,
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Mt 6.21)
"For the love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Tim 6.10 KJV)
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." (Mt 6.24)
I think, that in the light of this true Truth, both God and the people of New Zealand probably feel despised by those leaders (both secular and sacred) who love money and power more than them. And the blame for this lies fairly and squarely on our, the Church's doorstep, for,
"Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted...Righteousness exalts a nation." (Pr 11.11, 14.34)
Or to paraphrase these words in the "Kiwi" vernacular: If a nation seems to be going down the "toilet", it's because the Church is not healthy! If a society is in decay, what has happened to the light, the salt, and the yeast?
"You are the light of the world...put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house." (Mt 5.14-16)
"You are the salt of the earth." (Mt 5.13)
"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." (Mt 13.33)
John Houghton gave up fame and fortune to serve God as a Christian hermit. What life he had as the leader of a prayer house, was brutally torn from him by a greedy king. But the exposing of John's physical heart, revealed his spiritual heart...and its purity and humility and divinity stirred all of London, shook a tyrant, and moves and disquiets us even today.
The Church does not need any more "hoorah Henrys"...it already has plenty! But we do desperately require an army of John Houghtons!
"Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart..." (Ps 24.3-4)
"Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart." (Ps 73.1)
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." (Mt 5.8)
Unpolluted Water
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." (Ephesians 5.25-27)
Late last week I dreamed that I was preaching to an assembly of Christian leaders. While I was telling them what a truly awesome and wondrous privilege it is to speak "the very words of God" (Romans 3.2), they just went on talking amongst themselves.
"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others...If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God...so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 4.10.11)
I then looked across to one side of the meeting where a group of these leaders had formed their own workshop. They were being taught water-divining!
"Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror, declares the Lord. My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." (Jeremiah 2.12-13)
"With joy you shall draw water from the wells of salvation." (Isaiah 12.3)
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4.13-14)
"Whoever believes in me (Jesus), as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive." (John 7.38-39)
"See to it, then, that no one enslaves you by means of the worthless deceit of human wisdom, which comes from the teachings handed down by man and from the ruling spirits of the universe, and not from Christ. For the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, and you have been given full life in union with him. He is supreme over every spiritual ruler and authority." (Colossians 2.8-10)
Beholding Our End
"But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 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." (Romans 2.8-11)
"I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure...Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it." (Isaiah 46.9-11)
From time to time, God grants His People "glimpses of prophetic insight". (1 Corinthians 13.9) To what end? That some may crow about their special revelations, and by them seek elevation and personal advantage? I do not think so.
God sometimes permits us to "see" the future, that we may better prepare ourselves for it, and begin to learn to embrace today, what will overtake us tomorrow. Thus, the Lord is glorified somewhat, through our common-place lives, our ordinary acts of faith and small deeds of obedience.
The greatest responsibility local church leaders have is to prepare and equip their people for the future. Therefore, our view of what is to be, is overwhelmingly important and vastly influential. At the moment the Church in the West is mainly persuaded by three notions:
1) That life is pretty much going to go on as it always has, and the Biblical promise of a Second Advent is spiritual, symbolic, poetic.
2) That the Lord Jesus Christ is going to literally return. But before He does, Christianity is going to conquer the earth, and Christians are going to win dominion over this world and all of its governmental institutions.
3) That the Lord Jesus Christ will Himself literally return. His arrival will be immediately preceded by a season of unprecedented lawlessness, wickedness, social disintegration, and chaos. But the "true" Church will be spared all of this, because God will snatch His People ("rapture") out and away and to the safety of Heaven as history really starts "to go to the dogs".
There is however a fourth point of view, which is not widely preached or subscribed to at this time. It is that the Lord Himself will physically return and that His Advent will be anticipated by a period of unparalleled social, political and spiritual corruption and chaos, degradation and anarchy. But the "true" Church will live through and serve the Lord during this span of agony, which the Lord Himself has described as "a great tribulation"! (Matthew 24.21)
This time of fury will actually be the beginnings of the judgement on and the death throes of satan and the empires of evil which he has spawned on earth in virulent opposition to the Kingdom of God. But in the midst of the ordure and stench of the devil's demise, there will be glory. The Glory of God "in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4.6), and glorious deeds wrought by His saints. And the most glorious of these will be, that by the grace of God Christians will be empowered to love not their lives unto the death...especially in the West, and especially in our identification with Israel in her final chastening trial. And through our willingness not to shrink from death, and not to hold our lives too dear to lay them down for the sake of the Lamb of God...the devil, his dominions, and his disciples will be conquered.
"The Blood of the Lamb, and their fearless declaration of their faith, have won for them the victory over him (the accuser of our brothers), for they did not love their lives enough to refuse to die for their faith." (Revelation 12.11)
The first "day" of the Church's life belonged to the martyrs. So shall the "last"!
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch (35-107) prayed, "It is better for me to die on behalf of Jesus Christ, than to reign over all the ends of the earth. Him I seek who died for me. Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of My God."
"He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne." (Revelation 3.21)
I recently viewed the final, agonising minutes of a film about the life and the death of modern-day martyr, Edith Stein. ("La Settima Stanza" by Marta Meszaros, 1995)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=piy-9UUagHw
After viewing this completely overwhelming clip, the Lord said to me, "This is how it will be at the end!"
"And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." (Revelation 20.4)
Edith was born into an observant Jewish family in Breslau, Germany (Wroclaw, Poland today) on Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement in 1891. At the age of eleven, she gave up "practising my Jewish religion". She was a brilliant and beautiful woman, who studied philosophy, gaining her Doctorate, magna cum laude (with great praise) in 1917 at the age of 26.
In 1922, Edith became a Christian, having been profoundly influenced by the faith and the writings of Teresa of Avila, the extraordinary and redoubtable 1500s Spanish mystic and Church reformer. Upon reading Teresa's autobiography, Edith exclaimed, "This is the truth!" Although her faith and spirituality lay "in the unshakeable truth that the Old Covenant is fulfilled in the New", her decision brought terrible and painful estrangement for Edith from her beloved mother and her family.
Eleven years later, this huge price paid for embracing Jesus as Israel's Messiah and the world's Redeemer, dramatically and massively increased when she turned her back on a brilliant and yet promising academic career, to enter an enclosed, contemplative community...thus devoting herself to a life of perpetual prayer for others. Of this move Edith said, "Those who join the Carmelite Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God for everyone."
In the meantime, the black, satanic storm-clouds of Hitler's National Socialism were piling up over Germany. Of this ugly phenomenon Edith said, "The more an era is engulfed in the night of sin and estrangement from God, the more it needs souls united to God...Human activities cannot help us, but only the suffering of Christ. It is my desire to share in it."
November 9, 1938 was "Kristallnacht", when Hitler's war against God's Jewish People became "a national effort". That night the police stood by as Nazi gangs smashed and looted Jewish businesses and shops; 20,000 of Abraham's Children were then transported to concentration camps.
Out of this conflagration Edith prophesied, "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...The battle between Christ and antichrist has broken into the open...If you decide for Christ, it could cost you your life."
But this accurately anticipated passion, did not indicate a lack of faith or negativity or defeatism on Edith's part...quite the opposite! "Every man must suffer and die," she said. "But if he is a living member of the Body of Christ, his suffering and death will receive redemptive power from the divinity of the Head. This is the objective reason why all the saints have desired to suffer...I understand the Cross as the destiny of God's People...I felt that those who understand the Cross of Christ should take it upon themselves on everybody's behalf."
"I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Philippians 3.10-11)
"It makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of His Body, the Church...But part of my work is to suffer for you; and I am glad, for I am helping to finish up the remainder of Christ's sufferings for His Body the Church." (Colossians 1.24)
As the utterly insane and toxic Nazi' hatred of the Jewish People drowned Germany, Edith and her sister Rosa were moved from their convent in Cologne to a Carmel in Holland. She did not "run" to save her own skin, but rather did not want to be the cause of persecution against her Community. "I had heard of severe measures against the Jews before. But now it dawned on me that God had laid His hand heavily on His People, and that the destiny of these people would also be mine."
In Holland at that time, Jewish Christians were exempt from arrest and transportation. Nevertheless, when the Roman Catholic bishops condemned the murderous policies of the National Socialist invaders, this mercy was swiftly and vengefully revoked. Arrests began immediately, and fully-laden trains began their tragic journeys away into the east.
On August 2, 1942, the Gestapo profaned the convent sanctuary to arrest Edith and Rosa. As they were forced away from all that was most significant and comforting, Edith turned to a bewildered Rosa and said, "Come, we are going for our people."
Thus was fulfilled her earlier prophecy, "The Saviour today looks at us, solemnly probing us, and asks each one of us, 'Will you remain faithful to the Crucified?' If you decide for Christ, it could cost you your life. Consider carefully what you promise. The world is in flames. The conflagration can also reach our house."
On August 9, Edith and Rosa reached Auschwitz death camp. (The very name is a horror and execration in the ears of civilised humanity...It leaves the taste of bile in the speaker's mouth!) It is generally believed that they were both murdered in the gas chambers immediately. During the preceding week, the sisters were held at transit camps in Amersfoort and Westerbork. Eye-witnesses reported that during those final days, Edith devoted herself to caring (washing and feeding) children who had been abandoned by devastated Jewish mothers paralysed by fear and grief. "(I did not) know that my brothers and sisters would have to suffer like this," she said. "I pray for them every hour. Will God hear my prayers? He will certainly hear them in their distress."
Her final message sent back to the Carmel in Holland read, "There are so many persons here in need of a little comfort."
A card was later found by her Carmelite Sisters. On the back Edith had written, offering herself "as a sacrificial expiation for the sake of true peace: that the antichrist's sway may be broken, if possible without another world war, and that a new order may be established."
And in her will, she further spelt out her determination, "I beg the Lord to take my life and my death...as an atonement (reparation for injury) for the unbelief of the Jewish People."
Hitler's death camps have justly been described as hells on earth...fires burning night and day, as the devil's disciples sought to dispose of the grim and pathetic evidence of their vile crimes and mortal sins.
But this Edith had foreseen...and much, much more, when in 1939 she wrote prophetically, "The world is in flames...the world is in flames...But high above all flames, towers the Cross. They (the followers of anitchrist) cannot consume it. It is the path from earth to Heaven. It will lift one who embraces it in faith, hope and love, into the bosom of the Trinity."
"Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection...They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword...the world was not worthy of them." (Hebrews 11.35-38)
The Western Church must regain the theology of its own martyrdom swiftly...now! The day is upon us!
At the very least we need to recover the belief that God really does call some of His beloved People to physically follow the pattern of the death and resurrection of His firstborn Son.
"For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers." (Romans 8.29)
We need to be restored to the view that it is precisely by treading the path of ultimate discipleship, that the explosive victory of Jesus' resurrection is expressed in and through us...not just off in some distant place or time, but here and now, in our own history.
"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves Me must follow Me; and where I am, My servant will also be. My Father will honour the one who serves Me." (John 12.23-26)
Because the Son of God-Son of Man chose to fall to the ground and die, He now brings "many sons to glory". (Hebrews 2.10)
"Even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous." (Romans 5.19)
Whenever the devil cuts down one of Jesus' "faithful martyrs" (Revelation 2.13), many more spring up out of the ground sprinkled with their blood, to take their place. Thus satan is overcome, defeated and conquered.
It is always dangerous to speculate...especially spiritually. Nevertheless, had Edith remained at her books and prayers in the sanctified and secure enclosure of her convent, I think it highly unlikely that we would be speaking of her today. She might have obtained some kind of reputation in academic circles, or had a select following as a mystical theologian? But I am confident that she would not be known and loved as she is today.
Because this brilliant and beautiful Jewish disciple of Jesus of Nazareth willingly fell and died in the filth and muck of a Nazi charnel-house...I believe very many young men and women will rise up and lay at the feet of the Crucified, their intellectual brilliance and their spiritual passion, and call out to the Lord with august Isaiah,
"Here am I. Send me!" (6.8)
And perhaps even more importantly, only The Day will finally disclose those tortured and often self-condemned souls who found grace in the extremity of their depravity and wickedness, because of Edith's immolation and her prayers for her killers.
"For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, for we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort." (2 Corinthians 1.5-7)
"Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear in my body the marks ("stigma") of Jesus." (Galatians 6.17)
"Faithful Cross, above all other,
One and only noble Tree,
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit compares with thee:
Sweet the wood and sweet the iron,
And they Load how sweet is He."
(Hymn 108 PCNZ)
FOOTNOTE It is a venerable view of the Church, that there are three expressions of Christian martyrdom: red, white and green. "Red" martyrdom, of course, indicates the loss of the Believer's physical life for Christ's sake. "White" is expressed through exile and/or a sacrificial lifestyle (which voluntarily embraces poverty, chastity and obedience). "Green" martyrs are those Christian hermits and solitaries who eschew all the comforts and advantages of human society, to be utterly devoted to a life of perpetual adoration of God and intercession for others. Such choose to "die" and are "buried" in this world's wildernesses (both rural and urban)!
Smelling a Rat
A while ago, I wrote about my battle with a local tribe of water rats...vile little savages, one and all. Recently one broke through my bait-and-trap line of defence, to croak slowly (and painfully I hope!) in our kitchen ceiling. My discerning nose (1 Corinthians 12.10) sniffed out this rotting carcase. It has now (I trust) gone to the big rat-hole below.
But while playing my part in this small drama, certain thoughts arose. Back on 20/2/09, I wrote an essay, "The Thrush and the Rat", in which I suggested that "the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ appears all too often to be in the hands of 'the rats', and not 'the thrushes' ".
I spoke then of "all the innocent Believers (especially servant-leaders) I've known personally who have been ground to fine dust by the insatiable, brutal jaws of religious power-politics.
"How come, time-and-again, 'the thrushes' are killed, and 'the rats' slip away to plot their next upwardly-mobile move in their campaign to create 'church' in their own image?"
In my most recent encounter with these symbols of ecclesiastical buccaneering and squalor, John 10.11-13 came to mind,
"I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them, and scatters them. He flees because he is a hireling, and is not concerned about the sheep."
Now, according to Job and Isaiah, a hireling is engrossed in two things; getting his pay and working to his own timetable,
"As a slave who pants for the shade, and as a hired man who eagerly waits for his wages." (Job 7.2)
"For thus the Lord said to me, 'In a year, as a hired man would count it.' " (Isaiah 21.16)
Like my four-legged intruder, the ecclesiastical hireling always makes a bee-line for the Church's food supply, to both steal and pollute "the children's bread". (Matthew 15.26) He or she steals "the children's bread" in a way which may not be instantly apparent. They systematically set their own selfish ambitions and lusts ("my ministry, my vision, my destiny, my church..!) ahead of heart-felt, sacrificial care for all of God's People. Thus they stymie and thwart the free flow of the "precious and pleasant riches" of God's Word (Proverbs 24.4) to His People.
(It was the Eldership of the Church in Ephesus that Paul reminded, "Feed the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood." Acts 20.28)
Thus it was in the days of Israel's judge and high priest, Eli. His sons stole "the children's bread" right from underneath the Lord's nose, so to speak. (1 Samuel 2.12-17)
Today's hirelings also contaminate the food they do not manage to steal, by strewing through the pure Word of God (Psalm 12.6), the droppings of their self-worship, and the idolising of their own ministerial achievements. This self-approbation may well be disguised with the language of mealy-mouthed religiosity...but the lurking stink of self-interest is unmistakable.
Some are actually beyond help, and so go on without apparent qualm or twinge of conscience, to "corrupt the word of God (preach for personal gain)"; and continue "handling the word of God deceitfully (falsifying and dishonestly manipulating Scripture)". (2 Corinthians 2.17 and 4.l2)
Thus today, self proclaimed "apostles" and "prophets" will trumpet loudly a job description of those sacred appointments, not according to Holy Writ, but in line with what he or she sees while preening in front of the mirror. And others, are not content with the prescriptions of the Bible, and so have invented their own titles, which cannot be discovered in either the Old or the New Testaments, nor at any time in the Church's history!
It is chilling to reflect that ancient Eli's sons went from theft of God's food, to stealing His People. Those "dirty rats", having filled their own bellies, then violated and took possession of the women who laboured as the Lord's servants at the entrance to the Tent-Tabernacle. (1 Samuel 2.22)
The pathway from self-love to self-aggrandisement to patronising the People of God, and thence onto contempt for God Himself...is short and slippery,
"For I was envious of the arrogant, as I saw the prosperity of the wicked...pride is their necklace...they speak from on high...their tongue parades through the earth...Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction. How they are destroyed in a moment. They are utterly swept away by sudden terrors." (Psalm 73.1-19)
"If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it." (Matthew 16.24-25)
From time-to-time, this kind of trenchant writing draws down onto my head the criticism that I do not love the Church. I write thus, precisely because I do love the whole of the Body of Christ, and believe that it absolutely deserves, at every level of its life and work, servant-leaders who are committed first and foremost to becoming more and more (no matter how high or crippling the cost) Christ-like!
God Himself must be the goal of every Christian leader...not success, or fame, or wealth, or power. Anything less that the Lord is something other and something else. Behind every idol (especially those carefully crafted to adorn religious culture) lurks a demon, whose goal is possession for destruction.
Being Christ-like is not necessarily considered a modern, Western Christian value or virtue. But the heart of the Gospel insists that God became like unto us, so that we might become like unto God. (2 Corinthians 5.21, Romans 8.29, 1 Corinthians 15.49) That's the deal. Anything else, is something else...no matter how many may flock to your meetings, no matter how huge your offerings, no matter how vast and ornate may be your gaudy tabernacles!
The days are speeding by, and one day history, and the Church with it, will hit the impenetrable brick-wall called the Last Day. After that day, change and alteration will be beyond us. We must then forever live with the choices and decisions we have made in this life. Let us change while we may.
"For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ, we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." (2 Corinthians 2.15-17)
"The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here." (Romans 13.11-12)
A while ago, I wrote about my battle with a local tribe of water rats...vile little savages, one and all. Recently one broke through my bait-and-trap line of defence, to croak slowly (and painfully I hope!) in our kitchen ceiling. My discerning nose (1 Corinthians 12.10) sniffed out this rotting carcase. It has now (I trust) gone to the big rat-hole below.
But while playing my part in this small drama, certain thoughts arose. Back on 20/2/09, I wrote an essay, "The Thrush and the Rat", in which I suggested that "the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ appears all too often to be in the hands of 'the rats', and not 'the thrushes' ".
I spoke then of "all the innocent Believers (especially servant-leaders) I've known personally who have been ground to fine dust by the insatiable, brutal jaws of religious power-politics.
"How come, time-and-again, 'the thrushes' are killed, and 'the rats' slip away to plot their next upwardly-mobile move in their campaign to create 'church' in their own image?"
In my most recent encounter with these symbols of ecclesiastical buccaneering and squalor, John 10.11-13 came to mind,
"I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them, and scatters them. He flees because he is a hireling, and is not concerned about the sheep."
Now, according to Job and Isaiah, a hireling is engrossed in two things; getting his pay and working to his own timetable,
"As a slave who pants for the shade, and as a hired man who eagerly waits for his wages." (Job 7.2)
"For thus the Lord said to me, 'In a year, as a hired man would count it.' " (Isaiah 21.16)
Like my four-legged intruder, the ecclesiastical hireling always makes a bee-line for the Church's food supply, to both steal and pollute "the children's bread". (Matthew 15.26) He or she steals "the children's bread" in a way which may not be instantly apparent. They systematically set their own selfish ambitions and lusts ("my ministry, my vision, my destiny, my church..!) ahead of heart-felt, sacrificial care for all of God's People. Thus they stymie and thwart the free flow of the "precious and pleasant riches" of God's Word (Proverbs 24.4) to His People.
(It was the Eldership of the Church in Ephesus that Paul reminded, "Feed the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood." Acts 20.28)
Thus it was in the days of Israel's judge and high priest, Eli. His sons stole "the children's bread" right from underneath the Lord's nose, so to speak. (1 Samuel 2.12-17)
Today's hirelings also contaminate the food they do not manage to steal, by strewing through the pure Word of God (Psalm 12.6), the droppings of their self-worship, and the idolising of their own ministerial achievements. This self-approbation may well be disguised with the language of mealy-mouthed religiosity...but the lurking stink of self-interest is unmistakable.
Some are actually beyond help, and so go on without apparent qualm or twinge of conscience, to "corrupt the word of God (preach for personal gain)"; and continue "handling the word of God deceitfully (falsifying and dishonestly manipulating Scripture)". (2 Corinthians 2.17 and 4.l2)
Thus today, self proclaimed "apostles" and "prophets" will trumpet loudly a job description of those sacred appointments, not according to Holy Writ, but in line with what he or she sees while preening in front of the mirror. And others, are not content with the prescriptions of the Bible, and so have invented their own titles, which cannot be discovered in either the Old or the New Testaments, nor at any time in the Church's history!
It is chilling to reflect that ancient Eli's sons went from theft of God's food, to stealing His People. Those "dirty rats", having filled their own bellies, then violated and took possession of the women who laboured as the Lord's servants at the entrance to the Tent-Tabernacle. (1 Samuel 2.22)
The pathway from self-love to self-aggrandisement to patronising the People of God, and thence onto contempt for God Himself...is short and slippery,
"For I was envious of the arrogant, as I saw the prosperity of the wicked...pride is their necklace...they speak from on high...their tongue parades through the earth...Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction. How they are destroyed in a moment. They are utterly swept away by sudden terrors." (Psalm 73.1-19)
"If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it." (Matthew 16.24-25)
From time-to-time, this kind of trenchant writing draws down onto my head the criticism that I do not love the Church. I write thus, precisely because I do love the whole of the Body of Christ, and believe that it absolutely deserves, at every level of its life and work, servant-leaders who are committed first and foremost to becoming more and more (no matter how high or crippling the cost) Christ-like!
God Himself must be the goal of every Christian leader...not success, or fame, or wealth, or power. Anything less that the Lord is something other and something else. Behind every idol (especially those carefully crafted to adorn religious culture) lurks a demon, whose goal is possession for destruction.
Being Christ-like is not necessarily considered a modern, Western Christian value or virtue. But the heart of the Gospel insists that God became like unto us, so that we might become like unto God. (2 Corinthians 5.21, Romans 8.29, 1 Corinthians 15.49) That's the deal. Anything else, is something else...no matter how many may flock to your meetings, no matter how huge your offerings, no matter how vast and ornate may be your gaudy tabernacles!
The days are speeding by, and one day history, and the Church with it, will hit the impenetrable brick-wall called the Last Day. After that day, change and alteration will be beyond us. We must then forever live with the choices and decisions we have made in this life. Let us change while we may.
"For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ, we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." (2 Corinthians 2.15-17)
"The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here." (Romans 13.11-12)
As it is in Heaven
"Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." (Matthew 6.10)
"They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: 'See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.' " (Hebrews 8.5)
The architecture of Israel's Temple in Jerusalem, was a reflection of the lay-out of Heaven. In other words, it was designed by God to be a literal home-away-from-home.
"The Lord has said that He would dwell in a dark cloud; I have built a magnificent temple for You, a place for You to dwell forever...Now arise, O Lord God, and come to your dwelling place, You and the ark of Your might." (2 Chronicles 6.1-2 and 41)
So, we had better take care what we assemble in His name, here on earth. For it is ordained that what we create should be "a reproduction of that which exists in Heaven". (JB Phillips NT)
And that ought of necessity to raise the even more serious and ultimate question: What do we "see" in Heaven?
It seems to me that the Western Church is presently being inundated with accounts from Christians who say that they have been to Heaven and returned to tell their story. It is not my place to comment critically on any of these reports individually. But this I must say: The majority of these testimonies differ substantially from the text and the spirit of the Bible?
By that I mean, consider the humility and the brevity of the great apostle Paul, when he recounts to the Church in Corinth, "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know - God knows. And I know that this man - whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows - was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses." (2 Corinthians 12.2-5)
(It is generally agreed, from considering the rest of this passage, that Paul is in fact talking about himself!)
Like Paul, I too once knew a man "caught up to paradise" 33 years ago..."whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know - God knows"! And his account is yet more modest and briefer still. He knew himself to have been lifted out of this world and brought before the very face of God. But he saw nothing...being bathed in and blinded by dazzling, white light.
"God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To Him be honour and might forever. Amen." (1 Timothy 6.15-16)
Thus, Paul "is not permitted to tell"...and the other servant is "blinded"? So, where are we to turn for that "vision", according to which we may safely "build" both creed and structure?
"To the law and to the testimony: If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isaiah 8.20)
So, let us then consider the record of Heaven left by the beloved Apostle; extraordinary for its intricate detail, its profound mysteriousness (simultaneously literal and figurative), and the plain fact that it was and is considered worthy to be stored up for us ("on whom the last days have come" - 1 Corinthians 10.11) in the canon of infallible Scripture.
In "The Revelation of Jesus Christ", John reports in his old age, "After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in Heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, 'Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this.' At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in Heaven with someone sitting on it." (4.1-2)
Here lies and is revealed to us the very heart, core and key of the Heavenly pattern...the occupied Throne of God! All else hinges and hangs upon this. Thus it was revealed to the august Isaiah, at the outset of his considerable prophetical life and service, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the Temple." (6.1)
Similarly, for the briefly-glimpsed, courageous and accurate Micaiah...pressed to prophesy before a corrupt Ahab and a complacent Jehoshaphat, "Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne with all the host of Heaven standing around Him on His right and on His left." (1 Kings 22.19)
He served God in the season that saw the final, bloody judgement of Ahab's evil empire...along with his in-gang of lickspittle, false prophets, "So the king (Ahab) died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried him there. They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria (where the prostitutes bathed), and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of the Lord had declared (through Elijah)." (1 Kings 22.37-38)
Likewise, the ethereal Ezekiel; prophet to an exiled Israel, who fanned the flames of hope for a People under the severest correction of God. His visions and raptures were founded upon his bedrock glimpse of Heaven, "Above the expanse over their (the living creatures') heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man." (1.26)
My point is, that all we presume to build here in His Name, must be according to the divine pattern - Heaven's configuration. And of the first importance is this: That the heart of Heaven and the pivot of Paradise is the occupied Throne of God. And a Throne occupied by..?
Here lies perhaps the most startling revelation of The Revelation. All too often eschatologists are mesmerised by beasts, whores and mathematical codes. But surely, for any seriously concerned to garner practically useful knowledge for the End Times, 'tis wisest to begin at the beginning...the matrix of all Mystery...the centre of Heaven.
And this is revealed to John (and therefore to us) when it is announced that "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David" who "has triumphed...is able to open the scroll (of God's historical salvation-purposes) and its seven seals." (5.1-5)
But when John looks about for a great and powerful King, he sees "a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the centre of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth." (v6)
Thus the "Author and Finisher...Leader and Perfecter...Source and Goal" of our faith is made known to us in this Last Hour - for the purposes of our discipline unto obedience - as a "little" Lamb "bearing the marks of a sacrificial death"!
And that which is indubitably at the epicentre of Heaven, must also be the core of our and the Church's heart. We will in this crisis hour, literally stand or fall according to our ability or failure to embrace this reality. The Lion of Judah is mentioned once in The Revelation; the little Lamb, 27 times. Our humanity clamours for the Lion's intervention and triumph right now. But we must wait awhile for that. For Almighty God has determined that our salvation at the Cross, throughout history, and immediately before the Second Coming, is wrought by the figure of ultimate weakness and sacrifice...the Lamb of God!
"He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth... Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53.7 and 12)
Thus we may say (and expect) confidently that in the coming Great Tribulation, we shall not triumph through the muscularity of religious cleverness and organisation. We shall overcome by becoming more and more like Jesus...not only as He chose to be at the Cross, but as He has ever been, and is now in Heaven.
"They overcame him (the accuser of our brothers) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." (Revelation 12.11)
"For the (little) Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd; He will lead them to springs of living water." (Revelation 7.17)
"They follow the (little) Lamb wherever He goes." (Revelation 14.4)
Above all things, the Last Church will walk in the understanding that,
1) Our salvation is always and entirely and totally by the Blood-sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, 'Drink from it all of you. This is My Blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'" (Matthew 26.27-28)
"Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the Church of God which He bought with His own Blood." (Acts 20.28)
"What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus."
"O precious is the flow,
That makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know.
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus."
(Dr Robert Lowry, USA, 1826-99)
To depart from this, is to put our feet upon ancient pathways, which lead inevitably to deception and deep darkness: Gnosticism (extra-Biblical mysticism), legalism (salvation through pride-driven adherence to a subjective and edited view of God's Law), and humanism (intellectual pride despising Spirit-dependent revelation).
2) God is by nature, essentially humble.
"Who is like the Lord our God, Who is enthroned on high, Who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in Heaven and in the earth? He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap." (Psalm 113.5-7)
And Christians are commanded to be as their humble Saviour, "Your inmost thoughts must be like those of Christ Jesus: He shared God's very nature from the beginning, but He did not consider that he must cling to His equality with God. No, He emptied himself, assumed the nature of a servant, and became a man like one of us. He appeared in human form and humbled Himself in obedience, even to the point of death - death on a cross." (Philippians 2.5-8 Translator's NT)
As one might expect, the opposer of our essentially humble God, is riddled with pride to his very core. The devil has already been condemned for his pride, conceit and insolence. (1 Timothy 3.6) His pride has belched out into competition and rivalry, fantasy and madness...and will end in final, unutterable disaster.
As the devil's insane rebellion rages to its filthy and futile crescendo immediately before the Lord Jesus Christ returns, he will feast upon and attempt to build a platform on any vestiges of pride (especially spiritual superiority and smugness) he can sniff out in the Church.
But God will help us, as we build His Throne in our hearts and in our assemblies and in our organisations...and there enthrone the little Lamb, so that He can pour His own heart into our hearts,
"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest...for your souls." (Matthew 11.29 Amplified)
"Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold your King is coming to you, lowly and riding on a donkey." (Matthew 21.5)
"Now I Paul myself beseech you by the humble-heartedness and selflessness of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10.1 Montgomery NT)
It is not too late for the contemporary Western Church to reclaim humility as a virtue and a strength...rather than treating it as an embarrassing liability. The parade of Scripture-spouting celebrities, ear-tickling charlatans, sports stars, and prosperity fabulists, through the supposedly holy place of our pulpits, has done nothing to slow our civilisation's relentless charge to Hell in a handcart. If anything this "image triumphing over substance" religious culture has probably greased the tracks!
(In this regard, the Church has been seduced into the world's madness that "I've been seen on television or on the podium, therefore I exist"!!!)
In the context of 2000 years of Church History, it's really only a few seconds ago that the imperative relationship between spiritual power and humility was clearly understood and esteemed and embraced. After the 1906 Azusa St (Los Angeles) outpouring of Pentecostal power, revivalist William Durham wrote, "The Holy Spirit said to me, 'If you were only small enough, I could do anything with you." A great desire to be little, yea, to be nothing, came into my heart. But it has been oh so hard to keep low enough for Him to really work through me. And He only really uses me when I am little in my own eyes and really humble at His feet.'
And the author of the definitive account of that visitation ("Azusa St"), Frank Bartleman recorded, "The fact is when a man gets to the place where he really loves obscurity, where he does not care to preach, and where he would rather sit in the back seat than on the platform, then God can lift him up and use him, and not very much before."
"Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18.4)
"For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." (Matthew 23.12)
"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up." (James 4.10)
"Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time." (1 Peter 5.6)
"Just as I am, without one plea
But that They Blood was shed for me,
And that thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come."
(Hymn 411, PCNZ)
