Useful Resources
OMEGA-MINISTRIES.ORG
In this section are a number of websites and books which can help inspire you to to seek the Lord in effective praying and in getting out there doing as well. As always, JESUS CHRIST is our greatest example and the one to whom we must compare ourselves and obey. The greatest resource is the Bible itself, so please spend your main study time in the Word of God, preferably the King James Version! These days even a short search on YouTube for revival preaching provides a great deal - but always test against Scripture, because we see through a glass darkly. Websites: www.omega-ministries.org www.biblegateway.com www.biblehub.com www.spurgeongems.org www.heartcrymissionary.com www.propheticvision.org.uk www.eurovisiontv.org www.thelastreformation.com
Free material to download, Booklets and tracts. Online Bible versions for comparison Online Bible versions and Greek / Hebrew Lexicon and Interlinear Powerful messages from one of the great preachers of the 19th Century Equipping and mobilizing indigenous churches and missionaries David Hathaway evangelistic website - recommended! Revival preaching broadcasts to the world- David Hathaway Join the network of believers who want to see power evangelism
Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:19
JESUS CHRIST
Priests & levites By Charles Haddon Spurgeon (c1870) Sermon No 992
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Tim 2:15 This no-compromise, biblical clarion call to revival is timeless. He clearly shows how the church can be brought from where it is to where it ought to be. The church still needs his message, first published in 1983. “We live in a generation which has never known revival— God’s way!”
Available from: Bethany House
TRACTS to aid outreach
For the God sent no save world; d. (Jo but tht his So H hn 3: at th n inOF FAIT Jesu 17) e wSor to the inhe s is that E TEST ld th world roug inhe ritance WAYTH to
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Omega has a range of uniquely inspired tracts that present the Word of God to the non-believers and religious minded.
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These include: Signs of the end Are you a Rebel? Resurrection Daily Disciple Discipline The Tests of Faith and many more ... FREE DOWNLOADS.
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Available from: www.omega-ministries.org
Every disciple should know the commands that Jesus gave. This free study guide reveals 4 types of commands (instructions) which Jesus proclaimed. These 133 commands reveal how the Spirit filled disciple can live to please God. Essential reading for every disciple! FREE!
Available free: www.omega-ministries.com
Do not read this book if you enjoy Sunday morning church services! This book is for believers who want to utterly abandon it all, from top to bottom, and then start over in a way that is a revolutionary, radical departure from all present-day church practices. How did the first church meet? Get the answers here.
Available from: www.seedsowers.com
ISSUE: 03
“And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.” Isaiah 66:21
A NEW ORDER OF PRIESTS AND LEVITES
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HIS chapter is surrounded with critical difficulties, and yet it is full of spiritual instruction. The verse before us is by some referred to Gentiles, and supposed to mean that the Lord promises that He will take out of the heathen nations a people whom He will make into priests and Levites. Others would say it points to the Jews, rejected for their unbelief and dispersed in judgment among all nations. When their own Messiah came, it was not with a devout faith, but with a profane imprecation, they said, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” The curse they invoked did come upon them. The retribution they challenged has been meted out to them in full measure. To the letter it was verified. Have you ever read
how, when Titus was besieging Jerusalem, 500 Jews were sometimes crucified in a day? Do you not remember that Josephus, speaking as an eyewitness, said, “There lacked room for crosses, and crosses for bodies”? To this day their children are scattered in all lands, and have found no rest for the soles of their feet. But they are to be restored; they are to be brought back to their own land and to worship God on His holy mountain; and in the latter days, when they are restored, then will God take of them for priests and Levites. To me it appears of very small consequence to which this verse refers, for in Christ Jesus there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision; and this promise seems to me to stand good to the whole human race considered in its fallen state. “I will take of them for priests and
for Levites, says the Lord.” Under the gospel dispensation God will select both out of Jews and Gentiles a chosen people, who shall stand before Him spiritually as the priests and the Levites stood before Him typically. Think for a minute of the compass of this great promise. Evidently a high honour is here conferred; the context leads us to see that not only a great promise, but likewise a great privilege is implied. What is this privilege? It is that we shall be priests and Levites. Now the priests or Levites were persons set apart to be God’s peculiar property; when the firstborn were spared in Egypt, God claimed the firstborn to be His own, and He took the tribe of Levi to represent the first-born. They were to be the Lord’s; though all Israel belonged to God, yet the tribe of Levi was especially
continued on page 3
INSIDE Priests & Levites • A Message for our times Part 2 • Signs in the Sky • Beyond Radical - Issues we dare no face & more...
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OMEGA-MINISTRIES.ORG
ISSUE: 01
Revival – God’s Way Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:19
Revival times is a FREE publication offered to those who want to be encouraged and built up to know JESUS CHRIST as their Lord God and saviour. It is published by Omega Ministries which is a non-denominational prophetic movement of believers who want to see the Kingdom come on earth as in heaven. Please send all enquiries or questions to the email address given below. We recognise all material copyrights and thank God that all contributors take no wages for their work of faith in order to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world and to revive his true church in our day. All Scriptures are quoted from the King James Bible and or Greek and Hebrew, where appropriate, for clarity. This paper and other teaching material is offered online for downloading and printing free of charge. If you are inspired by the content of this paper please pass on to brothers and sisters for their encouragement. Revival is a long lost concept in our modern society because the true Gospel has been perverted, watered down and twisted for personal gain by wolves in sheeps clothing. Enough is enough and now the sleepers must awake from their spiritual stupor. The dead dry bones must live and the faithful army of the Lord arise and shine the beauty of Christ in us, the hope of glory.
The Call Has Gone Out Soldiers of Christ, arise And put your armour on, Strong in the strength which God supplies Thru His eternal Son; Strong in Lord of hosts And in His mighty power: Who in the strength of Jesus trusts Is more than conqueror
Where is the hope for Revival— God’s Holy Spirit outpoured Convicting of sin, and of judgement And righteousness of the Lord? When nothing else is important— Only God’s presence Divine, When Christians quit worldly pleasures, Then God, His ear will incline. Desperate prayer for Revival Will cleanse the Church by the Word. Then clothed in spotless, white linen, The Bride clears the way for her Lord. Prayer is the key to Revival, Prayer that is true Spirit-born, Nights of compassionate weeping— Intercession for all the forlorn.
The lost ones will yield to God’s Spirit When Christians, cleansed, weep and pray; God’s Living Water flows outward; This is “Revival—God’s Way”! —Estelle Gifford Jackson
Editor: Stephen Turnham © please copy and pass on Download the PDF here: www.omega-ministries.org email: info@omega-ministries.org
Apostle Paul
PAGE 2 REVIVAL TIMES
The E pistle
to the
Romans
chapter
Considering what we now know let’s look afresh look at the passage in Revelation 12. I will comment each verse in red. First note that this is a ‘vision’ and not an astronomical observation. 1 “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. (Israel brought forth a child and that child was the seed - Jesus! As we have seen the history of Israel was painful for many centuries in order for Messiah to come. Satan rose against this plan to hinder it! But Mary was with child and gave birth to a supernatural son - the saviour according to the Father’s plan!)
Then will the burdens be lifted, Then all the sinners will cry, Then all the chains will be loosened And worldly passions will die.
in
The tale of two women
(This is a woman, but which woman? According to symbolic language this is faithful Israel because it is a crown)
FIRST THOUGHTS That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us . For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
They will soar on wings like eagles; T hey will run and not grow weary, They will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:28-31
and women fulfilled this prophecy, this was the ‘notable day of the Lord’. But no record is known of any cosmological changes at Pentecost!? Again this language is purely symbolic and the Jews present knew this - so must we. Blood moons show that God is all powerful and has set the universe in place. He refers to this whenever significant prophecies are given, so that we are clear who is speaking it, our creator! Peter later tells us that the new nation born at Pentecost is in fact the church or body of Christ! A new nation, not another Israel, but an heavenly Jerusalem for both Jew and Gentile to be as one with God (1 Pet 2:9).
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3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. (This is Satan and his kingdom of fallen angels in heaven, they knew God’s plan and opposed it. 4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. (Satan was there in Herod Antipas waiting to murder Jesus, but failed because they fled to Egypt to survive because of Angelic intervention. Just as Jacob had done centuries before his son survived!) 5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. (This is a one sentence summary of Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension! He will rule the whole earth one day on his return, every knee will bow)
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. (So they fled to Egypt and hid until Herod dies. 1260 days (by the end Jesus was 3.5 years old. At which point the kings of the east find him by an angel (star) having guided them Matt 2:8-11) 7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, 8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. (This is the great battle to finally cleanse heaven of Satan who retained access all this time (see Job 1) contrary to former belief this had not happened before. He came to God to accuse the saints of sin and his rights to punish them (v10 below) 9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (Through the cross, resurrection and ascension this great battle was fought in the heavens and Jesus declares this in John 12:31 and 16:11. His blood was presented in heaven itself to cleanse all Heb 9:12 from sin) 10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. (The salvation that Jesus brings removes the condemnation of the devil and sin giving the believer victory over him! Satan can no longer approach God to accuse us Rom 8:34, but now attacks us directly through persecution) 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. (This is the true church history for 2000 years! More than 60 million have given their lives) 12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them (Luke 15:10). Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. (The angels rejoice over every soul saved, but the world will experience Satan’s wrath as he sets his efforts against all creation to destroy it! Check the news!) 13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. (Satan’s anger stirs him towards persecution of Israel and the church. They
fled from nation to nation looking for peace) 14 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. (Israel was dispersed into the nations (wilderness) as was the faithful church via persecution by the Papacy (anti Christ) for 1260 years - an historical fact!) 15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. (This is a flood of violence and false teaching the doctrine of devils to entrap God’s people into perdition and to persecute the true church) 16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. (Many key nations of the earth eventually came to accept the Gospel and came to Israel’s aid and the world suffered through many world wars as demons battled for their territories in the earth. Israel’s punishment and longest exile eventually ended in 1948 after 2 world wars and 6 million Jews and others murdered) 17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (At the same time that Satan opposed the true Jewish remnant he attacked the faithful believers and we see this across the world through time and especially today) So we see that Revelation 12 is actually a summary chapter regarding the history of Israel, Jesus and the church until the end comes. It has absolutely nothing to do with astronomy or Zodiac signs to predict the future! It reveals to us that we are indeed near then end of the age and that we must learn to understand the signs correctly. The fig tree is growing and the nations of the world are growing, each one like a Babylon with towers and sky worship! Multi-faiths and multi-idols abound in every city of the world while Christian faith is under constant attack! However, despite all this take heart, in Jesus words of encouragement to us who follow him with our very lives:
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) n
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the greatest (Matt 11:12-15). The ‘dreadful day of the Lord’ was indeed the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, an historical fact (See also Luke 21:22-28). The Sun of righteousness was Jesus himself and he did have healing in his wings! (The Sun symbol of Jacob, the father of Israel and his SEED Jesus the head, the King of Israel).
Prophecies given by Jesus Jesus came as God’s saviour for the remnant who would be saved from the final judgement of warfare upon Israel (Matt 13:11). History was about to enter the final phase of which Daniel had spoke, the final 2 kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the iron and the iron & clay mixed. (Dan 2). Notice that Nebuchadnezzar calls first for his astrologers and sorcerers to try and understand the vision, they can’t. Daniel gives the correct interpretation from God and favour comes upon him and the Jews. After this 70 year exile their national sins were fully paid. Then, as God always had done before, they returned to the land and grew again as a sign to the world of God’s faithfulness. Jesus came and prophesied one last and terrible judgement upon the apostate Israel Jacob’s trouble, the greatest tribulation that Jerusalem would ever experience.
The days of vengeance “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” (Matt 23:35; Luke 11:51) Jesus tells the leaders of Israel, and those who rejected him, that the judgement of all judgements was coming upon them and that it even stretched back to Abel! What! Yes this is the close of the age of Israel and the beginning of the new age of grace through the church (remnant Jews). “For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:22-24). As well as directly telling the Jewish leaders what would happen when they were judged for rejecting him, Jesus used the ancient symbolic language
of judgement which they had come to recognise. They all knew the judgement language, they understood it was not referring to the actual elements, but like a vision, dream or parable it was referring to something spiritual, the unseen powers of heaven, the armies of God! He continues to prophesy the end of the gentile nations - and the very end of time itself - all in relation to Israel. “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:25-28)
So Jesus tells his enquiring disciples and all of us that Israel is judged first by a great army (the Romans) and that the whole gentile world will also be judged by a coming army - the angels of heaven and we will see him coming for real through space and time - his second appearing! The great and dreadful day of the Lord (Rev 1:7). Remember how earlier we understood that when Sun, Moon and Stars are mentioned together it symbolises ISRAEL and his sons. There shall be signs in ISRAEL! Is this not our day since 1948! To clarify his prophecy Jesus continues by giving a parable about Israel as a ‘fig tree’ and the other nations as ‘trees’ shooting forth (growing and expanding): “And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree (Israel), and all the trees (Gentiles); When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:29-32) A generation is 40 years. Jesus spoke these prophecies in approx AD 30 by AD 73 Jerusalem and Israel as a nation were destroyed, but not the nations. The Christians fled Jerusalem in the summer of AD 69 when the Romans surrounded it, but the apostate radical Jews had stayed to fight - all the rebels died bar a few survivors who went to Rome and exile. These prophecies concerning Israel were fulfilled within the generation that heard his voice. If it was not so then Jesus was lying - and he doesn’t lie! The Jewish historian Josephus recorded all of it. The Israelites were scattered into the nations to mercifully preserve some of them, not to destroy them. How these nations have treated them has shaped modern
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history. Israel did come back into their land when the punishment was ended and the earth helped them. The Balfour declaration in 1917 opened the way for the eventual establishment of Israel in part of their land in 1948 - the fulfilment of the promise of God to the Patriarchs. This is unique in history, no other ancient nation or tribe has ever been restored in such a fashion. It’s a sign to the world, the fig tree has grown back! We also see that since this happened just about every nation has grown and grown in size. It was the Jesuits under the Papacy in the 18th and 19th centuries who have tried to futurize these Scriptures about Jerusalem to mean that something else in today’s Jerusalem is yet to come. Jacob’s trouble has already happened and they have been restored back to the land and will never leave it again despite what the Islamic fundamentalists or even the United Nations declare! Our duty is to love Israel and help them not attack them again. Those who do will be judged for this. The truth is that everything God does is for the sake of his people, the seed of Abraham natural and spiritual. Kingdoms will come and go, natural disasters will come and go, earthquakes will come and go. Storms also will come and go until the very end, but as Jesus said when he comes back in person, at his second ‘appearing’ everyone will know for sure, because the light of his glory will blot out both the natural Sun, the Moon and all the Stars combined like lightning lighting up the sky. This is when he will judge the nations! “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev 1:7-8)
A nation born in a day “For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ ” (Acts 2:15-21) Peter says The Spirit coming into men
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selected, and particularly appointed to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation. And of this tribe of Levi, chief among them was the house of Aaron to minister in the sanctuary as priests. So now, glory be to God, He takes out of all nations a people that are to be peculiarly His own; His own by election, as He chose them; His own by redemption, as He bought them; His own by endowment through the regenerating and sanctifying operations of the Holy Spirit. “They shall be Mine says the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels.” His own, therefore, before time, and after time shall close; “I will take of them for priests and for Levites, says the Lord”; being thus set apart as the Lord’s property, the priests and Levites lived only for divine service. While others were engaged with their trade or upon their farm, the Levites were attending to the tabernacle or temple, and the priests in their courts were slaughtering bullocks and lambs, and offering them to God; or they had other duties of a kindred order, by reason of the charge given them of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel. Anyway, it was in sacred things that they were occupied. So now it is the duty of every man to serve the Lord, but, alas, man will not! And therefore God takes unto Himself a people out of all nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and He ordains them to stand before Him continually, to wait on His commands, and to do His bidding; thus He puts upon their shoulders His easy yoke, and weights them with His light burden, and they become His willing servants—that their life may be for His glory, and that their desire, as well as their duty, may be to serve Him with heart and strength as long as they have any being. In this sense, then, happy is the man who is set apart to the divine service, a priest and a Levite unto God. Further than this, the priests and the Levites enjoyed the privilege of drawing near to God— nearer than the rest of the people in that typical dispensation. While the people stood outside, the Levites were busy inside; one of them, the chief of the tribe, and the High Priest before the Lord for all the tribes, was permitted and commanded to go into the most holy place within the veil. And you know that the holy places made with hands are figures of the true, even of heaven itself; in like manner there are people to be found on earth at this day whom God has chosen to draw near unto Him. In Christ Jesus they who sometimes were afar off are made near by the blood of Christ; the same precious blood that is applied to their conscience is sprinkled on the mercy seat, and therefore they have access to the Father. Oh, happy are they, who, like the priests and Levites, love dwelling in the Lord’s house, and praising Him, who can say— “Here, Lord, I find settled rest While others go and come. No more a stranger or a guest,
But like a child at home.” Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations; we are a people near unto You; made nearby affinity with the Son of God; we are brought near by the blood, led near by the Spirit of God, kept near, and rejoicing to be near, for here is our honor and comfort, to be near unto God. We are made priests and Levites because we are claimed as God’s portion, prepared for God’s service, and admitted to a near familiarity with Him. There are some such to be found in this place today, whom God has taken from among the Gentiles to be priests and Levites unto Him. Now priests and Levites had two works to do: something to do towards God for men, and something to do towards men for God. They were engaged to do something towards God for men, and so they offered the sacrifices that were brought to the door of the tabernacle, whether according to the general ordinances, or to any special vows. Spiritually minded, they were much engaged in intercession for the rest of Israel, and so there is a people to be found this day who offer unto God acceptable prayer and praise, and in answer to their prayer, unnumbered blessings come down upon the sons of men. I trust there are some here who have power with God in prayer; you are the king’s remembrancers; you make mention of His name and keep not silent; you cry to God for Sodom, and yet more hopefully you cry to God for Jerusalem; your prayer ceases not, and God’s grace and favor always follow it. In this sense God is constantly taking out, even from among the vilest of the vile, a people whom He makes to be priests and Levites for men towards Himself. Another part of their office consisted in speaking for God to the people—“For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge.” As for the Levites, they were as ushers in the schools, and tutors in the families of Israel. Among the Levites were found those scribes who became the instructors of the people, the copyists of the law, and the expounders of its statutes and ordinances; they were ministers who opened up to the people, as Ezra did, the knotty points of the old covenant, and expounded the word of God; so not all of us in the same degree, but all of us in a measure, are to be teachers of God’s revealed truth, even as He has taught us. And He has, in this place, and throughout the world, taken out a certain company whom He has made to speak as His mouth to the sons of men—men of His own choosing, and His own sending who are as priests and Levites for His name. They claim no priestly office as though they could absolve the sinner; they leave that with Christ, the first-born of His Father’s house, and the chief Rabbi of the entire Lord’s chosen seed—but as teachers and instructors. They are in the midst of the world the priests and Levites of God. I have thus shown what the promise means; God will take out of the Jews and Gentiles a people REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 3
whom He will bring very near to Himself, and make use of for His own sacred purposes. The great point is this—it seems to be mentioned here as a matter of surprise that God should take any of them; of the persons here mentioned; of the sinful, backsliding, transgressing Jews, or of the blind, dark, heathen Gentiles; that He should take them, and make them to be priests and Levites before Him! Now that is parallel to the fact that God does take some of the most unlikely persons who seem to be the most unsuitable of all, and make these to be His faithful and honoured servants among the sons of men. Now, I shall first notice that fact; then, the reason for it; and then, the lessons from it. I. First, I notice that God does, to the astonishment of men, TAKE SOME WHOM HE MAKES PRIESTS AND LEVITES TO HIMSELF. This is a fact. Now, there are priests and Levites who God never took; there have been such in all ages; there were those in the days of Aaron who said—“You take too much upon you, you sons of Levi,” and when they stood before the Lord with their censers, “The earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up.” There were those in the days of Elijah. When he stood by the altar of the Lord, the priests of Baal, in great numbers, stood by their altar, offering prayer to Baal. You know how God had no regard to their sacrifice; they were the church established by law; but, for all that, Elijah the Nonconformist put them to the rout, and maintained the worship of the invisible God of Israel firm and faithful to the end! So in our Savior’s days there were priests and Levites—men taught and instructed in the law of God and these were the very men who conspired together against Him. They took counsel how they might put Him to death; they stirred up the people to say, “Not this man, but Barabbas.” And on down to this present day there are those legitimate priests and Levites, at least, those who call themselves so, whom God has never taken, upon whom He has never laid His hand, upon whom His Holy Spirit has never descended! They speak, but He speaks not by them; they administer ordinances, but He gives not divine grace to the ordinances by their hands; and such there always will be, doubtless, till Christ comes— but they are not spoken of in the text! The text says, “I will take,” and it is only those whom God Himself takes and chooses among men who are the real priests and Levites who serve Him! Observe, according to the text, men have nothing to do with the selection, for here it is said, “I will also take of them.” Not, “their parents shall bring them up to it”; not, “Those who shall be looked out as the most fit and proper men on account of some natural bent and bias, or gift and talent,” but, “I will take.” God’s priesthood in the world is a priesthood of His own choosing, of His own setting apart, of His own anointing! “He has made us kings and priests unto God.” The church is a royal priesthood, not of man, PAGE 4 REVIVAL TIMES
neither by man, nor of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth—it is all of God’s choosing! This sacred and consecrated band of priests and Levites, and all who serve God effectually and acceptably, are men whom He has Himself chosen to the work; He Himself has done it, and only His own will has been consulted in the matter. In their case, it appears from the text, that whatever was unfit in their character has been overcome by divine grace. “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.” If God takes them for Levites, He makes them Levites; if He chooses them for priests, He makes them priests. So, glory be to His name, when He chose you to be His priests and His Levites, my dear brother; when He chose you, my dear sister, to be His servants, He gave you the grace you needed to serve Him! He found in you no natural fitness, no suitability, but fitness for sin, a suitability to go astray, and to become a brand for the burning, and if there is a fitness in you to serve Him on earth and in heaven, it is His grace that has done it! It is His grace speaking in all its wondrous majesty—“I will take of them for priests and for Levites”—which has effected in you the great transformation, making in you all things new, and thus qualifying you to become the servants of the Most High. In some persons this natural inaptitude and unfitness for the Lord’s work has been more apparent than in others. They have been men of rough exterior, unhallowed life; their education neglected their passions wild and lawless, their tastes low and grovelling; yet, for all that God has taken from among such men some who in a special manner, even beyond the rest of God’s servants, have become as priests and Levites unto Him! He has sometimes selected women, in whom there seemed to be no suitability for His grace, to make them matrons in the church; and men, who seemed to be ringleaders in the service of Satan, to make them very captains of the Lord’s hosts! They had no inbred faculty, no natural genius that qualified them to become the instruments of righteousness— as I have said before, it was the reverse of this; their career was not foreshadowed by any instinct with which they were born; nor was it aided by any training they received in childhood. The God who chose them gave the grace they required at their second birth, and subdued all the evil that was in them by the rich discipline of His spiritual operations in order to qualify them for efficient service. I thank God, I remember in my soul some dear brothers who have been made eminent ministers of the gospel, of whom, if anyone had said they would ever have preached the gospel, none would have believed it! Not to mention the living, the men of today, let’s go back to the early days of John Newton, an earnest preacher, a famous evangelist, not to add, a sweet poet. Almost a model for the
And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?” (Micah 1:1-5) The destruction of Samaria and Judah years after that announcement is now recorded history, it’s all done and dusted many thousands of years ago. What happened? Foreign armies of Assyria attacked Samaria and years later Babylon came and destroyed Judah, the people and the land was wasted and the first Temple ransacked and burned. However, no-one saw the Lord ‘visibly appear’ and come down melting mountains etc. all this was metaphorical speech, referring back to the terror of Mount Sinai, to reveal what was happening in the spiritual dimension, and the seriousness of their rebellion. The mountains and valleys referred to the authorities (leaders) causing the rebellion, the ‘demonic’ and the earthly ‘kings’. On earth this was manifest through their destruction by armies with swords. His purpose for doing this is stated thus: “And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot.” (Mic 1:7) God removed the idols which were ruining Israel and his plan for their destiny. Many would die, but those faithful lived on! Their is always a small remnant that are faithful whom God protects. This is a key as to why God brings judgements, it’s for the sake of his people and his plan. It all looks terrible, but Micah holds out the hope of restoration through the eventual return to the land and ultimately the coming Messiah - Jesus. Notice in this his prophecy how it mentions a woman in labour and sheaves of wheat like in Joseph’s dream! “Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies. Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion. But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel: for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor.” (Micah 4:10-12; 5:2) There wasn’t an actual woman who gave birth, but it’s symbolic of the pain of expulsion (the purpose of birth), consistent with all prophetic utterances
to date. Just to highlight the point the Father decides that his very Word, the Messiah will be born of a woman, in pain and blood (Micah 5:3). This Messiah would be his ultimate grace and mercy to his people Israel and the final remnant of Israel would be saved. How awesome is our God!
What about Jesus as prophet? How did the Jews interpret Jesus words and prophecies in their own day? Firstly, consider the prophecy for the appearing of John the baptist and Jesus the Messiah which was clearly fulfilled by them: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” (I saiah 40:1-15)
Notice in the opening verse that the Israelites paid for their apostasy through ‘warfare’! (judgement). Isaiah announces that, at the time of John and Jesus
appearing, their sins would have been paid according to the covenant. (This was approx 400 years from the end of Nehemiah and Malachi’s governorship. During this time they were conquered and ruled over by 4 warring empires culminating in the Romans around 60 BC the very last and the greatest judgement in AD 70 which lasted until 1948). Jesus came to rescue the faithful remnant who would believe in him and be saved from that judgement (day of the Lord). The Spirit speaks of John the baptist raising valleys and lowering mountains, crooked paths straightened and rough places plain. Nothing like this happened to the natural terrain (the mountains are still the same), but all this was metaphorically representing the change in the hearts of men and the destruction of false (demonic) leadership (mountains). Again notice what is stated as the qualification of God to do this in verse 12: “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?”! Jesus did come with a strong hand driving out the money changers and he did shepherd his lambs. Did not the Pharisees wonder where Jesus got such authority and learning? Behold your God! This whole passage uses metaphorical language and we know how it came true, because John, Jesus and the apostles said it did! (see Luke 3:4-6; 7:26-27. Matt 1:22-23; 4:14-16; 12:16-21; 21:23-27).
Also look at Malachi’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem to take place after Jesus and John have done their work: “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Jesus declared that John the baptist was the Elijah to come, the last naturally born prophet and according to Jesus
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when seeing a ladder to heaven (Gen 28). Of course there is no actual ladder in the sky. Although they immediately understood what these dreams implied they incorrectly interpreted Joseph’s motives in sharing the dream, and their pride was offended by the young ‘dreamer’, especially as Joseph was Jacob’s favourite, the rest is history. Joseph’s dreams and the understanding of other’s dreams proved to be vital throughout his life (Gen 40). God’s big plan in all of this was to save Jacob (Israel) from a future famine and to prosper them in Egypt (Gen 15:13-14; 45:5). The priority with God was the preservation of Israel and his seed to come. Therefore the correct understanding of the Sun, Moon and Stars is as parabolic ‘symbols’ that represent ‘authorities’ and as ‘first mention’ this understanding carries through into interpreting future visions and dreams in ALL Scriptures from Daniel to Revelation. So we see that the Sun, Moon and 12 Stars together in a ‘vision’ always symbolise the nation of Israel. Just as ‘clouds’ (symbol of heavenly power and glory) are always associated with the Lord ‘coming in judgement’.
The iniquity of idol worship God expressly warns the newly created nation of Israel not to switch to worshipping the heavenly things (angels etc.), or earthly creatures instead of him in any form: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exod 20:4) “And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” (Deut 4:19. See also 2 kings 23:5) Here God Almighty is clear that the lights in the sky have no special powers like ‘gods’. They do not belong to Israel, Egypt or Babylon, but are rather given to all nations to reveal the incredible mind of God and the passage of time. We see how Satan wants to distort this basic truth and manipulate it for his own purposes causing confusion. The last days of Israel as a priesthood began with Jesus being crucified, and the last days of the nations began at Pentecost when the Spirit came into men, first the Jew and then the Gentile (Acts 2 & 10). As we have seen it was already clearly understood that all creation is suffering from the corruption of sin and the Scripture tells us that it’s man’s
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foolishness that will finally ruin the beauty of the earth (Rom 8:19-22). Just as Israel ruined the promise land through massive mismanagement, so now man’s greed for resources is polluting and destroying the whole earth! Over the last 150 years more animals have become extinct than at any time in human history, the earths temperature has increased and weather gone wild, even the pagans know this to be true! (see www.WWF.org. uk). Paul was writing in the first century AD and they knew these things would come! They knew of ‘natural’ disasters then, they saw the power and force of storms, earthquakes and famines, it was not uncommon. Paul tells us that earth is in ‘the bondage of corruption’ and this was ordained by God himself in the hope that it would wake us humans up to the serious spiritual situation of sin and Satan’s deception. In the Revelation of Jesus we also read that many will be judged at the end for destroying the earth: “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.” (Rev 11:18) God made the earth good and put man in it to care for it, but man’s allegiance to Satan has resulted in its destruction through abuse, war and greed. The earth, and now even the heavens, are shaking as a consequence - we are reaping what we have sown!
Rightly dividing the Word The best way to understand prophecy interpretation is to look at Bible prophecy that we know has already been historically fulfilled, according to Scripture itself, and see how the symbolistic language was completed (as with Joseph). The Bible therefore interprets itself - simple! For example there are many types of the ‘coming of the Lord’ in the old testament which clearly do not refer to Jesus second coming, but rather a coming of the Lord’s judgement, in that particular era, in time against a specific nation(s). The unseen Holy God of heaven works unseen in the whole earth through an agent or vessel, like Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army, using them to do his disciplinary work, in order to save his people. This was the fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecies and at this time when God calls Nebuchadnezzar his ‘servant’! (Jer 25:9). We also see that God’s judgement expressed against Egypt (more than once) was expressed as him ‘coming on clouds’: “The burden of Egypt. Behold, the Lord
rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.” (Isaiah 19:1) This prophecy was fulfilled when the Assyrians attacked in 670 BC, an historical fact. It is incorrect to use this Scripture as meaning anything in our day concerning Egypt. It has become an example to us of God speaking and then doing what he said (2 Pet 2:6; 1 Corin 10:11). However, no one in Egypt saw God in person on actual clouds, but we see how he used the Assyrian army to judge them as he had Israel before them. This event of ‘war’ is described as the ‘Lord riding upon a swift cloud’ (a cloud of Assyrians perhaps?). All the ancients knew that when God came in this way people are judged, nations destroyed, just like when natural floods come and disaster strikes, it’s a metaphorical and universally understood code! Prophecy vision is to be interpreted into real world events and NOT taken literally, they reveal the workings of heaven behind the scenes upon history. The same is true today as it was then, except we have lost the understanding of interpreting these symbols! Even king Nebuchadnezzar came to this understanding and expressed it in his amazing letter to us all: “And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” (D an 4. See
also
2 Kings 6:17)
Another excellent old testament example of this is seen in the books of Micah and Nahum who’s prophecies regarding Samaria, Jerusalem and Nineveh were all completed, being recorded later in Scripture and in historical archeology. The prophets use very dramatic language to announce the power of the Almighty, his qualifications if you like, to be the judge against their sin and iniquity: “The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Hear, all ye people; hearken, O land, and all that therein is: and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.
ministry was John Newton, but he was once a blasphemer and injurious! Turn farther back, to John Bunyan, on the village green, with his tip-cat on the Sunday, with all a drunkard’s vices and sins, and foul-mouthed in his profanity—yet John Bunyan becomes an eminent proclaimer of the gospel, and the author of a matchless allegory which has served to guide many a pilgrim to heaven! Turn farther back, to Luther, most earnest as a Romanist for all the letter of the law, diligent in every ceremony, superstitious to a high degree, yet afterwards the bold proclaimer of the gospel of the grace of God! Turn to Augustine, in youth of corrupt and vicious propensities, according to his own confession, to the grief of his mother Monica, yet called by sovereign grace to be one of the fathers of the church, and a notable exponent of sound doctrine! Look yet farther back to the apostle Paul breathing out threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord; like a huge wild beast, making havoc of the church, but suddenly struck down, and almost as suddenly raised up a new man, and ordained (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father) to be a chosen vessel unto Christ, to bear His name unto the Gentiles! “I will also take of them,” the most unlikely and unfit, according to human judgment. “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites unto Me.” And where the service has not taken the form of preaching, we can remember some whom God has made eminent in prayer; never account prayer second to preaching; no doubt prayer in the Christian church is as precious as the utterance of the gospel. To speak to God for men is a part of the Christian priesthood that should never be despised. Surely I have heard some prayers of those whom none would ever have expected to pray, such as I have not heard from those who from their youth up, have been accustomed to the language of devotion, moved with energy, and full of fervor, like Elijah. Or, shall I say it, they have become in spiritual force nerved as Samson was with physical strength; in their prayers they have seemed to take hold of the pillars of the temple of Satan, and pull them down upon their enemies; they have been so mighty as to wrestle with God and prevail! God has taken of them, that is even of the prayerless, and the careless, and the blaspheming—and He has made these to be priests and Levites unto Him. And in all other holy service I think I can remember eminent men who out of weakness were made strong; from simpletons they were changed into sages; or rescued from the dregs of infamy they became paragons of virtue. In their unregenerate state as bitter fruit, apples of Sodom that crumbled into dust, and turned to ashes, yet so transformed by the renewing of their minds that they bore the richest clusters of choicest fruit to the praise and glory of the Great Husbandman! “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites,
says the Lord.” There is the fact; you need not that I enlarge upon it; while a false priesthood still lives (and always will), God has His elect people who are His royal priesthood among the sons of men; they are discharging regal functions, and sacred offices among the sons of men in His name, and before His face; and these He oftentimes takes out from the least likely of mankind. II. And now, secondly, as to THE REASON OF THE FACT. Does He not do this to display His mercy—His great and infinite mercy? That those who have provoked Him to wrath should become the men in whom He should show forth His lovingkindness—men to be pardoned, men to be washed, to be sanctified—and then men to be put in trust of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Does not this reveal and illustrate the high prerogative of sovereign grace? “Unto me,” says the apostle, “who is less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” It is a great grace to be permitted to preach the gospel; I have sometimes said to you that when the prodigal came back to his father and was received into his father’s house, no earthly parent though he had quite forgiven him all the wildness of his son’s adventure, could wholly forget the waywardness of his disposition; he might condone the past without confiding in him for the future. If it were necessary to send one of the sons to market with a bag of money, the good old father would, in all probability, say to himself, “I will send the elder son with it; he is better to be trusted. I would hardly like to put such a responsibility upon the young lad who has so lately been reclaimed.” I can fancy, without uttering a word to his younger son, he would, discreetly (as you would say), trust the other with any weighty concerns. But our heavenly Father—oh, how He forgives us! He leaves no back reckonings, even though we used to be such sinners, some of us, and so injurious; after He forgave us, He committed to our charge not merely silver and gold, the perishable resources of time, but the priceless treasure of the gospel of Jesus Christ! He allowed us to go and tell others, “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” See you not the impure giving lessons on chastity, the intemperate teaching chastity? And mark you not how he who persecuted the disciples in times past, now preaches the faith he once destroyed? Oh, what deep mercy there is in Jesus! What wonderful grace there is in giving His commissions, that those who cursed Him, themSermon selves, should intercede with Him for others; that those who despised Him should be permitted to honor Him; that those who broke His Sabbaths, should nevertheless, be helpful to His people in hallowing the Lord’s Day; that those who despised His word, and put it behind their backs, should be the men to open it, and display the sweetness of it to their fellow men! Is REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 5
not this grace? I think every time Paul preached Jesus Christ, he would say to himself—“I used to call Him the Nazarene; I abhorred Him and used terrible language; here is great mercy, boundless mercy that He should take me to be His servant, permit me to labor for His people, and suffer for His sake.” Next to this, do you not think that the Lord loves to display His power? Men who are tamers of wild beasts will frequently, when they have subdued a lion, take delight in showing to the people how obedient that lion will be to them, and how every word that the lion-tamer chooses to say, the lion will regard and pay attention to. Thus when the Lord takes a great sinner—after He has tamed him, removed his heart of stone, and given him a heart of flesh, He desires to show how, without the use of the whip, without a threatening look or an angry word, He causes His enemy to become His diligent servant, His earnest friend! O brothers and sisters, it shows the divine power of love on a man when he is so broken down that the things he sneered at, he now preaches with all his might! Surely it showed the power of divine grace when Paul avowed Christ openly and vehemently preached, exposing himself to persecution and death, that same gospel which his soul had previously nauseated! Yes, which his zeal, full of bitterness, had kindled to exterminate! God takes great sinners, and then appoints and qualifies them to be priests and Levites in order that He might show the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe. Again, does not God do this to show His sovereignty? Can we ever forget that attribute of the Almighty? Divine grace, while it comes freely to us, is dispensed freely by God, according to the good pleasure of His will. I should like to hear that text thundered throughout Christendom—“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” No man has any right to the mercy of God! We have all sinned ourselves into rebellion—the only rights we have are the right to be condemned, and the right to be cast into hell; all the rights of man that he can appeal to God for in equity, are merged in the wrongs for which he is responsible. If the Lord has mercy, it is His own will to do it—He can withhold it if it pleases Him. So He selects the most degraded—those who have gone farthest from Him, and takes them into His church; no, more—He advances them into eminent positions of service in His church, that all His people may know that the Most High rules in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of this earth, and none can stay His hand, or say to Him, “What are You doing?” He lifts up the poor from the dunghill, and sets him among princes, even among the princes of His people. His mercy, power, and sovereignty are displayed when He takes of them to be priests and Levites. PAGE 6 REVIVAL TIMES
But does He not thereby secure to Himself the most loving service? I have sometimes thought (I hope I am not censorious) as I have observed with pain the superficiality of a great deal of what is called “ministry” in these days; that kind of superficiality, I mean, in which little is said about the corruption and depravity of the heart; little about the experience of the child of God when under the law; little, far too little, about the glory of that grace that takes such worms of the dust to make them one with Christ! I have often thought that this avoidance of, not to say this aversion to deep plowing may be accounted for by the fact that the preachers probably had not been allowed to go very far into outward sin; they never had any very deep lawwork upon their souls, never had much awakening of conscience, nor felt much of the powers of the world to come. They got their religion very easily; and so knowing little of soul humbling sensations, they could not go very deeply into the experience of the children of God. When the Lord calls a grievous sinner to make a gracious example of him, it is just the reverse; the man who has done business in deep waters knows what sin means; tortured with a sense of his own crimes, he has been like those wretched culprits who surrender themselves to justice, because their conscience makes liberty vex them. He knows what pardon means, for he has found peace after great bitterness, and got remission after the gnawing of despair; he knows what the conflicts of God’s people are, for he has had many fierce encounters with the lusts that beset him within, and the temptations that assailed him from without; and now when he opens his mouth, the testimony he bears is from experience—he speaks of things which he has tasted and handled of the good word of God. John Newton, to whom I referred just now, could not do otherwise than livingly and lovingly preach the word of God; you could not have squeezed from him a dainty essay or a flowery sermon, because nothing else would have consorted and accorded with his experience, but a faithful tale of the way the Lord had led him, and a forcible exposition of what the Lord had taught him; he had been such a sinner that it must be grace which saved him, and he would have belied all his inward feelings if he had not proclaimed the grace of God! And so with Bunyan—if he had not tearfully wept over sinners, and preached Jesus Christ in His fullness, as the Saviour of Jerusalem sinners, he would have been opposing all that animated his own breast, and all that burned and glowed for utterance. God, therefore, takes some of these men who have gone far astray, that He might have warm-hearted, intensely earnest men, who must proclaim the gospel because they have felt its power! They love much because they have had much forgiven; they preach of grace because they need much grace; and they lift up high the bronze serpent among
Babylonians when he announces their judgement from the Lord in Isaiah 47. In this passage we see what a large part of their evil culture depended on the ‘interpretation of the stars’ as ‘gods’. They called themselves ‘sorcerers’ and fully believed they were both right, wise and justified by their interpretations. However, as God reveals to them (and their king), they are highly mistaken!
roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
“Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers (astronomers), the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee.” (Isaiah 47:13-15)
The demons of hell are foolishly trying to measure heaven and earth to discredit God’s Word regarding his people, but to no avail! The seed of Israel will always be before the Lord, physical and spiritual. This is why man is so actively searching space as he cooperates with Satan’s desperate ploy. The continuing existence of Israel and the strength of the church globally testifies that God’s Word is true! Hallelujah!
God made night and day to teach us about dark and light, good and evil because we are dim. One brings life, one turns things off! When we are in the dark we sleep, normal existence switches off. We dream, visions may come, our mind tries to understand life on earth. God shows his gospel of hope by placing ‘lights’ in the sky as an assurance that he is still in control even in the darkness. By this we can sleep easy in the knowledge that, even though we are powerless to overcome Satan and darkness, the Lord allowed it so that we would look up to him! Now, through Christ, we can regain power over evil, by conversion when our eyes are opened and we receive the kingdom of heaven (obedience by His Spirit). He who has eyes let them see! Astronomers and occultists (astrologers) of Babylon are still with us today, being deceived and deceiving others, thinking they are wise. Babylonians invented their interpretation of the stars now called the zodiac with various constellations. Foolishly they map the stars and try to predict future events. These ideas have developed and changed over many millennia so that we now have 80 official constellations. The more they see of the universe the more there is to see and they just don’t get it! God’s thoughts are endless, he’s eternal. God laughs at their foolishness and, as we see from time to time, judges them. Today we have the ultimate degree of this religion called NASA and so called ‘space exploration’. They even seek to prove that their creator does not exist by looking for non-existent alien life! Foolishness beyond measure! Why do they do this? Well it’s Satan’s attempt to destroy God’s people: “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof
Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.” (Jer 31:35-37)
As disciples of Christ we must not fall into the astronomical confusionism that the world now loves. Jesus never said we should interpret the stars, let alone try and go to them, but he uses them in a parabolic and metaphorical form to confuse the Babylonian mindset. Paul reveals this in Romans 1:18-25 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” Think about what the so called constellations look like ‘man’, ‘birds’, ‘beasts’ and ‘creeping things’! Add to this mythological gods, these are idols of created things! Like a child’s join the dots picture in a colouring book the so called scientists think they know why stars are where they are. Poppycock! God’s Word never ever specified these interpretations. So where do they come from? These are the vain imaginations, to focus the lost on the erroneous interpretation of creation. Complete and utter occult Babylonian babel!
Of course Jesus knew mankind would fall for these lies and so ‘as a sign’ he put a consequence upon this false ‘star’ worship as Paul reveals! As the desire for science and space travel and the interpretation of stars increases, so does sexual perversion - this is very evident in our day. This is a form of judgement on the godless which, paradoxically, protects God’s faithful people, because believers are repelled by these sexual perversions. The faithful do not want homosexuality, paedophilia, abortion, child slavery etc. or their false teachings and blasphemy, so they turn to Christ in prayer and action. In time God justly brings judgement down on these perverted enemies. Unfortunately false ‘prophets’ are liable to ride on the populism that predicting the future can bring, these are the ‘prognosticators’ or ‘predictors’ of Babylon. It’s also a big money spinner and a snare that foolish people fall into because it sounds convincing, deception always does.
The correct interpretation of Scripture So we have seen how to wrongly view the stars, in a Babylonish way, but how then as Christians, should we view the cosmic events that happen? In Genesis Joseph’s dream provides a key insight in how to correctly interpret dreams and visions from heaven. Dreams, visions and prophecy make up important sections of Scripture and are deliberately coded in parabolic language, so that those who do not know God by the Spirit, get confused and his people alone see and understand (Isaiah 6). Joseph’s second dream is the ‘first mention’ of Sun, Moon and Stars together in a heavenly vision. This ‘first mention’ is a key that unlocks the truth for us: “And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?” (Genesis 37:9-10) Notice how the Sun and Moon symbolise authorities over the young Joseph, the firstborn of Rachel and Jacobs 7th son from his 2nd wife (Father and mother) and his brothers are seen as eleven ‘Stars’ (making him the 12th star). They all understood the parabolic imagery used in this way. They did not expect something to go weird with the real heavenly bodies in the sky, but knew this was symbolic, because it was given in a ‘night vision’ or dream state. Jacob himself had experienced this in his own life at Bethel
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cut to the heart (the Spirit brings conviction of who Jesus really is - the Messiah), and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent (change your mind) and be baptized (death into Christ from this world and separation from Satan and the curse of the Law) every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, (all need sins to be forgiven even Jews!) and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (the whole point was to receive the promise of the Spirit which is the seal of God’s ownership see Eph 1:13) For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (God knows who the remnant of the Jews would be, the predestined ones and now the firstborn. It is God who calls these people to himself) And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” (Peter gave them much more teaching than this brief summary and persuaded them to give up their Judaism and their sinful lifestyles) So those who received his word were baptised, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Baptism happened straight away.What were they added too? Yes to the household of Jesus - the church, the new nation of heaven and they stopped their Jewish ways for justification) (Acts 2:1-36) (see also I saiah 66:7-9). So we see that, at Pentecost, even before one Gentile was saved, there were these two houses present in the land. As stated in part 1 we had the house of Israel unbelieving Jews and the house of
Jesus, the remnant church of the firstborn who were predestined to believe from every nation where they had been scattered, both made of Jewish men and women by natural birth. Jesus had built his church, the people of the heavenly Jerusalem, founded on a new covenant in his blood and Spirit (not a renewed old covenant) but a new separated body (a new spiritual nation) which has its true home in the heavenly kingdom (and new earth to come), from where he now reigns – until sent back by the Father as judge. Membership of this heavenly spiritual church is the only way to escape the ‘crooked generation’ and be saved from God’s wrath to come. You must be born again! Peter again reminds us of these points when writing his first letter to the church assemblies which he considers to be like a new ‘nation’ and a ‘priesthood’ called out of Satan’s world system and out of Judaism. “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy (his church).” (1 Pet 2:8-10)
Finally, in considering why Jesus built his church, his way by the Spirit, think of how Paul and
all the travelling apostles then preached to the heathen nations that were worshipping idols in temples and shrines. “Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:23-31) n
Next time in Part 3 we consider: Who are the real house of Jesus? To read this entire message in pdf format please email your request to: Stephen@omega-ministries.org
WATCH & PRAY “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” Matt 26:41 “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.” Mark 13:32-34 “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” 1 Peter 4:7 PAGE 18 REVIVAL TIMES
the sin-bitten hosts of men because they have been sin-bitten themselves, and remember it! They have looked and been cured, and they still remember the cure, and rejoice in it. Another reason why the Lord takes the vilest of men to make them the saintliest is that He might openly triumph over Satan. How the devil must feel defeated when such a man as Saul is taken straight away from persecuting to preaching! Surely it makes Satan bite his chains, and gnash his teeth when he loses his servants so. Just when he has trained them up, and got them into fine condition for doing mischief, in comes the officer of divine grace, arrests them, and changes their hearts! You know none ever do the devil so much mischief as those who once did him service; they know the ins and outs of his castle; where to attack it; they understand so much of his devices and tactics, that they become all the more powerful adversaries when they are converted. All heaven rings with rapture when a great sinner is saved; and all hell howls with dismay when one of the arch host bows down to kiss the feet of Christ and receive the mercy of God! Glory be to God when He takes those who would have been deepest damned, and sets them highest among the saved on earth to be priests and Levites unto Him! By these means also He secures another end—He encourages poor penitents, for when a sinner, under a sense of sin, meets with a brother in Christ who was once like himself, but is now living near to God, and serving Him acceptably, he is much encouraged. “Why,” he thinks to himself, “is this how God receives sinners when they turn to Him? Perhaps He will receive me.” And if he gets into conversation with one of those whom God has made priests and Levites, he says, “Tell me what the Lord has done for your soul.” And the minister, being a man of like passions, and having had like experiences, delights to describe the works and ways of God with hardened sinners and old offenders; and then the man who is seeking finds in the other a guide who is touched with the feeling of his infirmity, is very helpful to him, and much blessed of God to enter into the secrets of his heart, and lead him to the cross! If there is here some great rebel against God, I think he ought to take encouragement to turn unto the Lord and live, for surely, when God so treats His most defiant enemies as to make them His most honoured ministers, there should be some comfort for the great sinner to seek the Lord while yet He waits to be gracious! And do you not think this is done very much for the encouragement of the church of God? I know, as myself one of its humble members, I often need to be solaced by seeing what God’s hand can do; we ought to walk by faith, and so I trust we do, but when we see sinners converted, it gives zest to our fellowship and zeal to our enterprise; we all of us feel the happier for it! I hardly expect to see as
many converts in the tabernacle as there used to be; we have had so very many brought to God, that those of you who are left, I almost fear, have resisted too much the wooing and warnings of divine love; indeed, there are so few comparatively left that we have not the opportunities we once had when the mass of the congregation was not converted. Perhaps there are few of you whom God has not blessed, and I do long to see a fresh ingathering of converts; it would make my heart glad, and it would make all the church glad if we heard of some great sinners being saved. I pray God sometimes that He would save a great multitude of the priests of the Church of Rome, and the Church of England. He did in olden times bring a great multitude of the priests to believe the gospel, and why should He not again? If He wills to call to Himself some of the lowest of the low, and the vilest of the vile, and make them wonders of His grace, His omnipotent fiat shall be instantly obeyed! Why should He not? Why should He not? He has done so—why should He not again? He has done so, I say, and the text says, “I will take of them for priests and for Levites.” Why should He not still go on to take from strange quarters a people who shall serve Him? Does He not say, “I will”? Suppose it should ever come to this, as some say it will that the churches, many of them, will desert the old truths of God? They say the ministers will become dumb dogs that cannot bark, and one by one their testimony will be silent; they predict every candlestick will be taken out of its place, and the whole head will be sick, and the whole heart faint, and Zion will be under a cloud, and there will be none to help her, they say, and none to lift up the banner for the truth of God. What then? Why, then God would arise and take again from the fishermen in their boats, new apostles; and from the lowest dens of iniquity, and the worst haunts of vice; from the saloons of frivolity where the rich resort, and from the chambers of commerce, and the palaces of merchandise where buyers and sellers make their contracts, He would take a fresh staff of men! Out of the roughest material He can make the finest fabric! Out of the newest recruits He can raise a noble regiment to show forth His praise, to do His work, and to secure victory for His cause! If some were unworthy holders of His vineyard, and brought Him no revenue, He would put aside those wicked men, and send forth fresh labourers, and give His vineyard unto others, for He will get glory unto His name! He “will take of them for priests and for Levites.” Never say it is a dark day; never say God has forgotten His church; never give way to despairing fits and dream of horrible times coming that are not to come! Verily, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” and the glory of God shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it, for the mouth continued on page 14
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A Message For Our Times PART 2 - By Stephen Turnham
“As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. And behold, you are to them like one who sings sensual songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes*—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” (Ezekiel 33:30-33) (*judgement).” Welcome to the second in a 12 part series looking at who the ‘church’ really are and why.
PART 2 - WHY DID JESUS BUILD THINGS DIFFERENTLY?
J
esus Christ often referred to himself as the ‘Son of Man’ and in this way linked himself and ministry quite deliberately to the prophets like Ezekiel quoted above. It strikes us that this passage could easily describe what is going on in much of modern day Christianity, especially in the wealthiest countries of the west. Many are hearing the Word, but they are not ‘hearing and obeying’, and this is because life’s too comfortable and convenient. In the religious circles there’s even the avoidance of adult baptism by full immersion, the denying of the Holy Spirit gifts for today and even the denial the ‘person’ of the Holy Spirit. Many cults and all other religions deny that Jesus is God come in the flesh, saying that he was only a good man or prophet (Islam, JWs, Mormons etc.). Many mainstream church organisations support political resistance, demonstrating, rioting and even justify war itself which are all forbidden by Jesus and not valid values for those who claim to follow him (Matt 5:9; 1 Pet 2:13,14). Tragically God’s ‘blessings’ are also being manipulated for financial gain. By presumption false teachers use the laws of sowing and reaping and tithing PAGE 8 REVIVAL TIMES
as a just way to gain riches, fleecing the body of Christ. Most believers in poorer nations are near starving or homeless and yet many are greatly blessed with spiritual revival! The wealth of the world is a huge barrier to entering and experiencing the true kingdom of God (Deut 8; Luke 1:53; 8:14; 18:25. As mentioned in part 1, Jesus came to Israel in total fulfilment of ALL the Messianic prophecies. The Holy Spirit and the Father were literally dwelling in Christ’s physical body, yes in his physical flesh, because his was declared Holy, separated from Satan, free from the curse of this earth through his supernatural conception in the virgin Mary (Col 2:9). He was the last Adam (1 Corin 15:45). As he grew he was also separate from the world’s hierarchical system of control from both the Jewish and Roman state rules. Jesus announced that Satan ‘hath nothing in me’ (John 14:30) and Paul calls Jesus the ‘last Adam’, because, like Adam, he was without sin. Jesus was the holy tent or tabernacle in which the Father and the Spirit dwelt - three in one! This is what Paul told the Colossians: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” (Col 2:9) This means that Jesus was the express image of the Godhead, this means that He had all power and authority. God as a man! The ‘Son of Man’, the Messiah promised through Moses and all the prophets.
The Lost Sheep of Israel At that time Jesus was quite insistent that he had only come to reach the ‘lost sheep of Israel’, so keeping the Word of Scripture that the Father had given to them (Matt 15:24). The traditional Jews among the people, (probably all the Jews in fact) had developed the idea that Messiah would come and deliver them from the occupying powers and set up another physical and political Kingdom like that of David or Solomon (Luke 19:11). The idea was that Israel would once again be the great invincible kingdom and rule the nations around them from the Temple. You might call this the ‘Israeli Dream’, it was this that also drove Judas Iscariot and the zealots. Today the world is mostly influenced by the ‘American Dream’ and they seek to achieve this wealth by monetarism, materialism and militarism. However, at the time of Christ’s first coming, we find that this ‘Israeli dream’ was not God’s plan and this distressed the disciples at first and eventually disillusioned Judas to betray him! “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that
that city if our names are written in heaven! This city is the Bride and the church is the city, can you see it? Church is not physical bricks and mortar (as on earth), that will crash-land on the earth one day and we will all walk into it - no, this is a visionary representation (metaphor) of a greater spiritual reality that is not of this world and is without the corruption of sin. It’s actually you and me with God dwelling in us all together in his glory in the future world! It’s hard to grasp this because we have only ever known this dark sinful world, and evil men have corrupted the gospel which is no gospel at all, but a perversion of it. The church or bride is so much more glorious than a cathedral or any human temple, those earthly things are an abomination to God! Now let’s look at Acts and see what happened when heaven came to earth and entered into the foundation of the twelve apostles and the other 108 or so present, to kickstart this great work of the church body. Acts 2:1-36
“When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. (the mighty rushing wind came from heaven and they were all meeting in a large house not in the temple) And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them (God appears as a fire when he enters earth’s dimension, just like the burning bush of Moses). And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.(the Kingdom power of the Spirit came into them and proclaimed the truth to all nations present) Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. (the Jews represented every dispersed Jew on earth - every nation was gathered as promised by the prophets of old) And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. (The Spirit was communicating supernaturally to
every nationality - reversing the Babel curse see Gen 11:1-9) And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes (converted Gentiles), Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” (This was the correct question to ask) But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” (to the natural mind it appears crazy or drunken) But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.(9am - so it was an early prayer meeting) But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: (This Joel prophecy is now completely fulfilled by this visitation of the Spirit!) “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, (the apostles and women, including Mary Jesus mother, were in that room! Plus later all those who believed were from all nations!) and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. (this promise to Israel was fulfilled at Pentecost right then and birthed the kingdom in mankind - heaven, even God himself, came to earth forming the new temple building out of people - living stones) And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ (this all symbolises the appearing of Christ, his sacrifice and the birth of the church a magnificent day [not a day of judgement that’s on his second return]). “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus
of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know (Jesus fulfilled this part of the Joel prophecy)— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Peter now fully understands God’s purpose in Christ’s death and resurrection) God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it (God’s Spirit cannot die!). For David says concerning him, “‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’ (Psalm 16) “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne,(the throne is a spiritual one) he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades [place of the dead, not hell], nor did his flesh see corruption.This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses (they met the risen Jesus over a 40 day period Acts 1). Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God (equal to God), and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,“‘The Lord (Yahweh) said to my Lord (Jesus), “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ (the apostles knew that Jesus had ascended to heaven’s throne - not an earthly throne! The church body on earth is his footstool - enemies converted to faith) Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Peter announces that ALL the old house of Israel have been told of Jesus Christ being made Lord) Now when they heard this they were REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 17
and powerful. Some of the other disciples even received ‘thoughts’ that they could become joint rulers with Jesus in this ‘fantasy’ kingdom of Israel that they imagined Jesus would build. But, as we now see in hindsight, this was not the Messiah’s purpose - rather it was that he would be THE holy sacrifice; ‘the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world’. Sin (Satanic thinking) is the big problem that is killing everyone and everything in creation and so Jesus dealt with it! His purpose was to put an end to sin and the curse of the Law (that reveals sin) and then fulfil the promise to Abraham of the Spirit. But why did Jesus need to build his own church body? Why not make Israel a new kingdom again? Surely this was still the logical thing to do and what all Israel wanted to happen (and what some people still want to happen today!). These are important questions to answer otherwise we too may be led astray and, like Peter, we will be in danger of being a mouthpiece for Satan’s thoughts and part of his world system (Luke 17:21 see also Isaiah 57:15; P sa 51:17 ). We do not want to be false prophets who pervert the work that Christ achieved through the cross (2 Corin 7:2). Any false gospel that promises ‘your best life now’ or material rewards for giving to the church etc. may look good, but it leads you away from the cross. To get a clearer vision of Jesus’ real ‘disciples’ and ‘his church’ we not only see it’s incredible beginnings in Acts, but we also have the privilege of looking to the end of time itself to see what shall be revealed upon his return, His pure Bride. The books of Revelation and Acts give us an amazing vision of the household of Jesus from which we can realise who we are and how we can partake of this ‘divine city’, both now and in the glory to come. Here are passages regarding the church of Jesus. PAGE 16 REVIVAL TIMES
We have annotated important observations (in red brackets) to show the deeper meaning:
First: the end from the beginning (R ev 21:9-27)
“Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” (The Bride is the ‘church’ of Jesus (like a wife) that has come through all the tribulations of history - the final body of Christ) And he carried me away (they left earth behind) in the Spirit to a great, high mountain (the Kingdom of Heaven is the mountain of God), and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, (the holy city and the Bride are revealed to be the same thing, called the new Jerusalem, and notice that it comes from heaven and not from earth) having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. (this speaks of its purity, holiness and rarity, the key word here is ‘like’, so it is not an actual building but a metaphor of holy beauty) It had a great, high wall,(those outside cannot see into it because of the hedge of protection) with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed (The early church was founded on the remnant of Israel who believed from every tribe and angels guard the people of God, see also Gen 3:24) — on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. (These twelve were chosen by Jesus to form a new covenant foundation with him being the chief cornerstone! No longer the foundation stones of the earthly Jerusalem which are only a shadow) And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls.(Gold symbolises love and the measurement is according to king Jesus against whom all things are measured) The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement.(The heavenly church is big and the holy cube symbolises, God’s
government of equality for all in God’s dwelling place) The wall was built of jasper,(hard and impenetrable) while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. (These qualities speak of the glory of the true body of pure faith, hope and love as seen in heaven) The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel.The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. (Jewels symbolise martyrs that gave their lives for Christ) And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl,(The wisdom of God is revealed through his dealings with Israel and the church through angels) and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.(It couldn’t be clearer, the church (people) has no temple building because it IS the building and Christ the Lamb is in the midst of us with no barriers, the true spiritual temple) And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.(the light of the church is the revelation of Jesus, the sun and moon are for the earth not required in his glory) By its light will the nations walk,(the real church is formed from many nations that obey the truth) and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it (every knee will bow to the king of heaven), and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.(the doors are always open for all who believe in Jesus) They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations. (only the best will come into the church) But nothing unclean will ever enter it, (no demon or sin can be a part of Jesus church) nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, (the sinless standards of behaviour in the church) but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (the only way to enter the church is to be born again of the Spirit, John 3 and be without sin John 5:18 through faith in Christ). What a beautiful vision John was given to express the glorious and spiritual magnificence of the church of the Lamb, the New Jerusalem the very city that Abraham our father sought after (Heb 11:8-10) and we are part of
be of God, but those that be of men.” (Matt 16:21-23)
“As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed.” (Matt 17:22)
They were distressed and confused by these words of Jesus because it just didn’t fit with their mindset, their ‘dream’ of the united and restored Israeli kingdom. Why was it that Jesus came to Israel and did not become the King? Why didn’t he try to reform the religion of his day (run by the elders of Israel)? What kind of a ‘kingdom’ was Jesus trying to bring anyway? It just wasn’t church as they new it, none of it was making sense to them. Little did they know that the final judgement on Israel was just around the corner and the age of Law about to end! And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. (John 9:39-42)
All disciples of Jesus will be tested against the Word of God, just as Satan tested Jesus at the beginning of his ministry in the desert. These three temptations (or tests) are designed to neutralise disciples in the spiritual war between the two kingdoms - heaven and earth, light and darkness. Satan offered Jesus three earthly things if he would submit to him: 1. Provision, 2. Protection and 3. Power. Jesus (even though God) denied himself all these things on the earth and refused to bow to Satan and to submit to his ‘leadership’. Sadly, today many ‘Christian’ men and women have fallen at
these basic tests (temptations) and have taken up Satan’s offers. However, there is a terrible price to pay for cooperation with the bad greedy world system over which Satan is lord. James tells us that wilful sin (submission to Satan) eventually leads to death of the spirit, soul and body with no hope of resurrection! (James 1:15). Remember that he was speaking to disciples! Only through 100% commitment and wholeheartedly obeying Jesus Christ can we have victory over sin and Satan. We don’t earn our salvation, but we can lose it if we turn back to worldly ways and obey Satan again! (Matt 25: 11-12; Heb 6:4-8; Gal 5:4; 20-21; J as 4:4). “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt 16:24-26)
To put it bluntly, if you don’t like this idea of ‘losing your life here on earth’ you cannot be a disciple of Jesus, because Satan will be able to deceive you and use you for his purposes:ambition, pride, lust and money. You cannot be in two camps at once, you cannot serve God and mammon (greed, money). It’s simply not possible to follow Christ in purity of conscience if you flirt with the world’s lusts (see also Rev 3:15-17). If you try to mix both together it creates lukewarm hypocrisy and makes Jesus sick! (Rev 3:16).
False teachers bring other gospels that look good
Satan works through such deceived people (just as much as God works through true apostles) who have not managed to break free from his temptation for personal glory and status. We saw evidence of this in action when Peter (without the Spirit) tried to prevent Jesus from going
to Jerusalem and to his death which was according to God’s will. Jesus turned to him and rebuked him harshly seeing the ‘spirit’ behind his words! Incredibly Peter was ‘unwittingly’ used by Satan, but Jesus wasn’t fooled. He could see the unseen forces at work, even through Peter at that time. Most people who are being used as false prophets do not realise that this is the case, because they have a serious ‘blind spot’ which prevents them from fully grasping the real truth of Scripture. This relates to the condition of their conscience, because they have compromised the Word of God to better themselves in this carnal life. (see also
Gal 2:12-14)
Satan’s goal in all this is to get us to focus our minds on the things of earth, the things of man (things he has led us to build ourselves). Within his extensive hierarchical value system he offers pride and position. He does this to cause a ‘hindrance’ to the true sacrificial message of the cross which is obedience unto death. Peter wanted Jesus to be the ‘human Lord’ over Israel, a ruling king and not one who dies a criminals death. The death of Jesus the Messiah made no sense to him, because as a child he had been taught a false gospel by his leaders. Thus his thoughts about this were in error and revealed to be Satanic in origin! Satan really did know what Jesus would do and wanted to stop it, but he could not because Jesus was a free man with authority over all, even over Satan. Jesus was obeying the Father (within) to go to Jerusalem as the Lamb of God to disarm and judge Satan forever. Satan threw everything at him to make him deny the Father, to make him act as God and to save himself, but Jesus would not and did not, hallelujah! The true gospel is about obedience through suffering not being rich continued on page 16
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Signs in the Sky
The Great Revivalists - Leonard Ravenhill What Do I Still Lack?
By Leonard Ravenhill What percentage of responsibility for my spiritual maturity is the Lord’s, and how much of it is mine? To say that I alone am responsible for my soul’s development is conceit. To say that all the responsibility is the Lord’s is impudence. I find it humbling, inspiring, and challenging to recognize that the greatest saints who ever lived did not have a bigger Bible than I have, they just knew it better. Indeed, they had far less of the divine Revelation. Today we have the complete message of God to man. He has nothing more to say to us. As the old hymn says, “What more can He say than to you He hath said?” God has no “P.S.” to add to the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. For years the Holy Scriptures were wrapped up in tongues that only the scholars could read. “There was no open vision in those days.” (I Sam. 3:1) Then, blessed day, the whole counsel of God was released in our mother tongue. With this unveiling came the glad news of the priesthood of the believers -Hallelujah! Do you wonder that Bishop Walsham How bursts into song about the Holy Word: “It is a golden casket, where gems of Truth are stored. It is the Heaven-drawn picture of Christ, the Living Word.” Trees are fascinating to most of us. I like to see the burdened fruit trees showing off their labor. The English like their mighty oaks and the Americans their redwood trees. At the moment, in the area where I write, the peach trees are richly endowed with fruit; but, it does not grow already canned. No! God gave us the fruit, we do the canning. Trees do not grow furniture, even in this scientific age. We have the trees, from them we make the chairs, etc. So it is with the spiritual life. Here is a stunning truth from Second Peter, PAGE 10 REVIVAL TIMES
Chapter one, verse three: “His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain TO LIFE AND GODLINESS.” Paul backs up Peter in this area when he says, “How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32) And to top these precious words, here comes Paul again with a staggering statement: “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; HEIRS OF GOD, AND JOINT-HEIRS WITH CHRIST” Stop there? NO, add the remainder: “...If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.” (Rom. 8:16-17) With all this limitless resource to inherit in this life, why then, O why, do we settle for minimum spirituality? These Scriptures just quoted shatter all our excuses for carnal Christianity and explode all our feeble excuses on bumper-sticker evangelism: “Christians are not perfect, just forgiven.” (Some backslider must have written that one.) Sinning is not permitted to believers. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.” (1 John 3:9) Not that it is impossible to sin; but it is, by the blood of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit, possible not to sin. John again shouts the triumphant note, “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) God, then, has made it possible for you and me to have victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil! Here are the Master’s commandments to His own. These are not options but imperatives. With His enabling and our striving, we can explore what Lowrey called “the possibilities of Grace.” We can leave the playpen in the Spiritual Nursery and go on unto perfection.” (Heb. 6:1) Here are His commands: • “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5.21) • “Building up yourselves on your most holy faith...” (Jude 20; Rom. 10:17) • “Keep yourselves in the love of God” (by obedience to His Word) (Jude 21) • “Put on the whole armor of God...” (equipment for beating Satan) (Eph. 6:11) • The Scripture is very clear here: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Christian maturity is not a weekend operation. On the other hand, remember there is no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity. While we are in the flesh, we “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Interpreting the stars - By Stephen Turnham
“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:14-18
G
od designed the universe to show His glory and character and for the benefit of his ultimate creature - man. He designed them in his own image, spirit, soul and body, in order that they could know him in fullness. He gave him a brain with as many cells as galaxies in the universe! The stars and planets are placed so that they can serve clear functions when viewed from earth. In this sense earth is at the centre of God’s purposes, as everything rotates like clockwork in the universe, wheels within wheels. Firstly we are told that stars mark the passage of time using ‘signs’, seasons, days and years. It’s interesting to note that ‘weeks’ are not mentioned at this point. We have to ask why did Jesus, the creator, deem this necessary? Why did he not just have another less complex system for lighting the earth and why day and night? Most people DO NOT consider these questions, even believers, because as humans we tend to think of our present life now as being ‘normal’. This is because we were born (post Noah) into an already corrupted age. The earth was created good, but later because of sin God subjected it to vanity and death. God did this, not Satan, because Satan doesn’t have such power. Why did God do this? “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Rom 8:19-21)
The ‘sons of God’ mentioned first here are probably not we Christians, but most likely the angels created before us. The ‘children of God’, disciples of Jesus are those in ‘the glorious liberty’. The ‘sons of God’, the angels of heaven, are the unseen armies of God (see Gen 6, Heb 2:5) good and bad in whose conflict we are embroiled. Heaven is really the power in control and earth is truly in spiritual darkness. Here on earth is all the sin that there is in the universe. Not good! Mankind’s true situation is bit like an animal that is born in captivity, in a zoo. It has no idea where it really came
from and it’s parents cannot explain it to them because they don’t remember. As it grows it adapts to it’s conditions in order to exist and have a form of life. It only ever knows it’s captors as those who feed him and it has no hope of escape. It’s not even interested in escaping and even if the zoo animal escapes it has no idea what to do or where to go! The point is that this creature is alive and from his perspective considers things to be ‘normal’ based purely on it’s growing experience and current environment. However from the outside we the ‘master’ know it’s a captive and not in it’s proper environment. We know that the zoo world was designed and built by our higher intelligence for a purpose unknown to the animals. The same is true for humans on the earth, an earth which does not resemble the one God originally created. Even so, earth still has a measure of glory that reveals the truth, but it’s dying, wearing out because of man’s sinful behaviour and vanity! Paul says that Satan (the fallen arch angel) is still the god of this world and he kills, steals and destroys persuading men to co-operate with him in it. Men think that this current world is ‘normal’ life, but as we know Jesus (the creator) disagrees. He came that we might have life and escape what he calls this kingdom of darkness (Matt 6:23 ). Notice how Paul again refers back to the creation when informing us of the ruler of this world: “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. ... For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (1 C orin 4:1-6)
These are incredible words of liberation. The Bible reveals that in order for God to have genuine ‘children’ who can know him fully he has deliberately put us in a PLACE and TIME (Acts 15:18; 17:2427 ) in a complex matrix of his devising which is under his sovereign control (E xod 13:12, Heb 1:3). The purpose of this TIME frame is to choose for eternity
who we will follow. Of course God is incredibly complex and far beyond our understanding, we are like a maggots trying to understand a computer! This gap in our knowledge is revealed to Isaiah and notice what God uses as a comparison for his thoughts: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9) This reveals that the enormity and complexity of the universe and the immeasurable distances we see represents God’s incredible thoughts! Astronomers and stargazers look up and suddenly discover this huge fact and cannot see the end of space. However, the real purpose of these observations is lost on them, because they try to understand them from a humanistic perspective and miss this point. Of course added to the mix is the great deceiver Satan, the alien angel, who takes the opportunity to suggest an alternative interpretation. This was also Eve’s original downfall and the curse of man ever since. Satan wants to keep us in the dark, so that we can remain under his control fighting with him in the war against the church!
Babylonian religion It was the Babylonians who turned the stars into occultist religious worship and sorcery. This is the big deception Satan and his angels introduced in order to distract mankind from the main purpose of the visible heavens - the enormity of God’s thoughts. Satan also wants to know his end date (his time is short), and evil men seek to know the future without obedience to God’s Word. Stargazing was, and is, the ultimate expression of disobedience. It’s worship, bowing down, to Lucifer’s the fallen star! It’s the worship of the physical creation as containing something more than God intended. Behind this facade of ‘good’ and ‘light’ demonic and angelic spirits are able to possess human minds and bodies for their own pleasures of evil. Isaiah reveals this huge error to the continued on page 19
REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 15
of the Lord has spoken it. He shall arise and have mercy upon Zion; He will build up her walls, heal all her breaches, and once again shall she be the joy of the whole earth! Take heart and comfort! God can find His servants anywhere; omnipotence has instruments where we see them not! He “will take of them for priests and for Levites.” III. Lastly, WHAT IS THE LESSON FROM THIS? I address myself to those of you especially, my dear brothers, whom the grace of God has taken to make priests and Levites unto God. You are near to Him—you serve Him. What effect should this have upon you? First, remember what state you were in before God’s grace took you in hand; then consider what you are called to be. You are made priests and Levites; then ask yourself what you would soon become if His grace were to depart from you? Why, as you were before—only with this difference, that the evil spirit in you would take unto himself seven other spirits more wicked than the first, and enter in and dwell there, and your last state would be worse than the first! Watch then, watch! Watch! God, His grace enabling you to watch, will preserve you to the end. Am I a priest and Levite—a holy vessel set apart before God—serving at His altar, bringing prayers and praises to Him? Ah, yes, I may be a priest and a Levite, but I should be a devil if His grace did not prevent! O watch, watch, watch! “What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.” And oh, what humility this vocation of God should produce! However high we may be raised, we must remember from where the honor comes, for this promotion comes neither from the east nor from the west—it is God’s gift! You, a blasphemer and injurious! You, a careless, godless, Christless man, now raised to be a servant of God, to wait in His courts, and honor His name! Be thankful that you are lifted so high, but wonder, and fear, and tremble for all the goodness that God has made to pass before you. What am I, and what is my father’s house, that You have brought me up to now; to pray and my prayer to be heard, yet not worthy to lift my eyes to the place where Your Honor dwells; to have Your Holy Spirit dwelling in me, and yet not worthy that You should come under my roof? Be humble, brother—it will help you to watch. Watching is done best in a lowly manner. And since He has taken us for priests and for Levites, let us do every office heartily as unto the Lord. If others in this world can serve God coldly, yet, my brothers, you and I cannot afford to do so; we were such sinners that if we have been forgiven, we must love Him! Those who had but little sin to be cleansed may not have much love to lavish on their Redeemer; not so with me or you—“I love most; I’ve more forgiven; I’m a miracle of grace.” Those who had some good principles instilled into them by early training, or some sort of preparation PAGE 14 REVIVAL TIMES
to receive the gospel may not feel their deep indebtedness to the wonderful working of the Spirit, but those of us who were steeped in sin, and hardened in heart, when we are saved we must magnify the power of God; and moved by that feeling we must serve Him heartily with our whole spirit, soul, and body! A man who feels what grace has done for him cannot help throwing his whole soul into it. I used to know a man whom I often heard swear—on the other side of the river, in the town where I was, and when converted I remember his prayers; they used to rather trouble us; they were so loud. It was not everybody that knew the reason why; he had been so accustomed to swear loud that he could not help praying loud, and when a man has been very loud for the devil, he cannot help being loud for Christ! Some of those dear Methodist brethren who cry out, “Amen!” extremely loud, do it, I hope, because they feel the love of God in Christ on account of what great things have been done for them. Let those go the common track of service that have gone the common track of sin, but let those serve the Lord with all their heart, and mind, and strength that have been unusual sinners! Bring your alabaster box, O great sinner; break it on His blessed head that pardoned you; wash His feet with your tears, and wipe them with the hairs of your head, for where extraordinary love has been experienced, extraordinary love ought to be the outgrowth, and extraordinary service ought to be the consequence! Once again, if the Lord has taken of us to be His priests and Levites, let us serve Him with great thankfulness and joy. If any people should be glad, I am sure it is those people who feel the abounding of His mercy in forgiveness, having heard those glad tidings, as it were, from the lips of Jesus Himself, “Your sins which are many are all forgiven you: go in peace”; they always have something to stimulate their gratitude, and flood them with sunshine. “I am very poor,” says one, “but, never mind; poor as I am, I am no longer a drunkard or a swearer; it may be I feel weak and sickly in body; never mind that. I am free from the burden of sin upon my soul.” Or, “I am unknown, quite unknown I have nobody to come and see me; never mind that, I am known to God. I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me! My great wounds have been healed in Jesus’ precious blood.” Why, you have always cause to be glad, my dear brothers and sisters, if you have had your sins forgiven; you have a fountain opened in your soul of love to Christ, and joy in God—quite as surely as there is a fountain open for the cleansing of your sins in the side of Jesus. So let me close by saying surely we ought to serve God with great confidence in Him. If He has made us priests and Levites to Him, why, then, we may trust Him to do anything! “He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
Jesus.” (Phil. 3:14) We hear continually about “Weight Watchers.” O that we watched our spiritual growth as carefully! I believe in instant purity: “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanest us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) I do not believe in instant maturity. Faith in the finished work of Christ is one thing. To add to your faith, as Peter says in 2 Peter 1:57, is something else. As a tree must be pruned regularly to bring it to maturity, so we need pruning. It is easy to sing, “And pour contempt on all my pride.” If I do that at all, I will do it conveniently protecting myself from any “bleeding.” It is when the Lord does it - or worse still when He uses some other human being (less spiritual than I am) to do the pruning - then can I kiss the rod? This is a process in spiritual growth. Can I take it cheerfully when I am slighted, when my name is cast out as an evil thing (though I am totally innocent)? Can I joyfully help to promote another to a position that I would like and which I am more capable of handling? I heard a preacher asking another if folks came to the altar at his last meeting. He replied, “Yes, but most of them are altar tramps.” It’s easier to go to the altar than to get on the cross. There is no magic in a trip to the altar. You will not grow an inch by walking a few yards to the altar, unless there is a total repentance and a holy vow to God that you will not fall into the same hole again. That holy band of “Heroes of Faith” in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews staggers me. They had no Bibles, no millions of cassettes as we have, no Bible seminars, no daily radio Bible
teaching, and (fortunate souls) no Gospel T.V. preachers whining about lack of funds (when did the Lord run out of supplies?). Yet what things these folks in Hebrews 11 accomplished: subdued whole kingdoms (O that some person rich in faith could subdue the worldwide kingdom of the drug trade), wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. What miracles, what men, what faith! These “pattern” folks of our faith did not get to the heights in one leap: “They climbed the steep ascent to Heaven Through peril, toil, and pain. O God, may grace to us be given, To follow in their train.” Asked why he was used of the Lord so greatly in China, Hudson Taylor replied, “God had looked long for a man weak enough, and He found me.” He takes the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Spiritual wisdom does not come with years, neither does maturity. The key to both is obedience. Whatsoever He saith unto YOU, do it. An insatiable thirst for God will produce an unquenchable love for holiness (as He is Holy), resulting in a passion for the lost. Remember, friend, you are just as spiritual as you want to be.
The Martyr’s Crown The saints of old were beaten, tried, Condemned and even crucified These martyr men beat no retreat When flames were licking at their feet. They saw the tyrant’s brandished steel, But still they offered no appeal. They struck no bargain for their lives, For their children or their wives. All slowly roasted in the flames While angels wrote each of their names Within a book God calls His own To be proclaimed before His throne.
Then we shall know of these renown When each receives his martyr’s crown, When God shall say to these, “Well done You ran the race, pressed on, and won, When in that race men said, ‘Insane.’ But now I gladly own your name. Now you are home! Come dwell with Me In joy through all eternity.”
Leonard Ravenhill
Leonard Ravenhill was a powerful preacher and author of many stirring books, including the classic, “Why Revival Tarries.” Formerly one of England’s outstanding evangelists, he went to be with the Lord on Thanksgiving Day weekend 1994.
REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 11
Beyond Radical Issues We Dare Not Face
By Gene Edwards (An extract of his book of the same name) Chapter 1 - The Story Behind What We Do We will start by finding out why it is that all of us Christians “go to church’ on Sunday. And at 11 a.m. Always having ‘church’ at 11 a.m. Sunday morning was started by Martin Luther. He drank an awful lot of beer on Saturday night at the local pub. The older he got, the longer he stayed at the pub, and consequently, the later he had to set the morning church service. Today 500,000,000 Protestants routinely (and without question) follow this Sunday tradition because of the beer-drinking habits of a German theologian!
The Pastor Think about it. Where in the New Testament do you find a man–the same man–who (1) preaches every Sunday, (2) marries people, (3) brings a message over a corpse at funerals, then (4) buries it with a prayer, (5) visits old ladies, (6) says prayers over football games, (7) CEO’s a church, (8) presides over elders and deacons, (9) is virtually always in a dress suit, (10) speaks strangely and prays funny, (11) baptises all new converts, and (12) whose office and all the above practices are supposed to be based solidly on the Word of God and found in Scripture. Such a man is not there in your New Testament is he? Yet, today, the man is the central figure in Protestant Christianity. Just how did the pastor idea get into Christianity? Here is the story. See for yourself if it sounds like it sprang out of “solidly based on the Word of God.” Pope Gregory the Great first popularised the term “pastor” in about 550 a.d. He did so by writing a book on the pastoral duties of the priest! The term pastor appears in no Christian literature before that point other than once in a long list of people mentioned in the book of Ephesians. The practical meaning of the word in unknown. Pope Gregory told the Roman Catholic priests to carry out pastoral duties: to visit the sick, teach doctrine, marry the young, sprinkle the babies, conduct the mass, bury the dead, and bless local events (such as festivals). These became forever the Roman Catholic priest’s pastoral duties. No such man and no such duties ever existed in Scripture. Luther came along a thousand years later and slightly altered this list of pastoral duties for Lutheran priests. Gradually the term pastor emerged into Protestant vocabulary throughout the English speaking world. The word pastor replaced the Catholic term priest. The man does not exist in firstcentury literature. Neither do these practices exists in PAGE 12 REVIVAL TIMES
the New Testament. We Anglos carried this pastor idea, which Luther invented, to the ends of the earth. It is now Christianity. If we removed the present pastoral role from Christendom, there would be an almost total collapse of “church’ worldwide. Yet the present day pastoral practice has absolutely no scriptural grounds. Try to find this man in the first century. If we move away from the pastor being centre, we move beyond radical.
Church buildings Until a Roman emperor named Constantine came along (about 300 years after Pentecost), the Christian faith eas the only religion in history that met in homes. It was the only “lay” led movement in the history of religion. Christianity alone had no institutions, no set rituals, no temples. That was unprecedented in human history. It is what made Christianity unique. And virile. And elastic, flexible, and adaptable. It had low overheads! Costs were minimal. Constantine changed all that. All other religions of mankind had these elements: temples, priests, vestal virgins, ritual, a secret vocabulary understood only by the priest, a silent laity. Look at that list again. Christianity now has all of these. (Okay, we Protestants do not have vestal virgins!) In the year 327 a.d. (mark that date, as it is pivotal in Christian history) Constantine ordered the construction of nineteen Christian buildings. That had never happened before. Until then, we met in homes. (At first, buildings were sen as shrines.) These nineteen buildings were constructed in three places. One in Bethlehem and two in Jerusalem (for His birth, crucifixion and resurrection), nine in the city of Constantinople and seven in the city of Rome. Constantine primarily launched these buildings for his brand new city in the east. It was a custommade city, created from the dirt up. The city was uninhabited until it was completed... with empty streets, grand government buildings, and the nine Christian buildings scattered around the city. The city also had an abundance of pagan temples. These were named after a god or a goddess. Constantine, a pagan in mind if not in soul, therefore ordered that each one of the nine Christian buildings be named after someone. Specifically they were to be named after first-century saints! (Hence: St Luke’s church,
St. John’s church, etc. Yep! That is how it began.) In Rome, the same year, Constantine ordered the construction of seven Christian buildings. (One was a shrine placed on the side of a hill just outside the city walls. The slope of the hill was called Vaticanus.) That is how (the curse of) the church building began. Very scriptural, we Bible-practising Protestants, are we not? These buildings later came to be known as churches. So it came about that Christianity joined all the other religions of the world and came to have its very own temples. The effect of these buildings was that we drifted further away from the spirit that had permeated the primeval Christian community. Why this should be so becomes clear when we consider that our word church has no equivalent in the original New Testament. The word church goes back to the Greek kyriakon, belonging to the Lord, which was understood to mean house belonging to the Lord. Later the meaning was extended to refer to the people who gathered in a particular locale as to whole denominations (e.g. Church of England). The New Testament, however, knows only the Ekklesia, the community of the saints. She is the house of the Lord, built of living stones. With the word church our eyes were turned away from the living ekklesia of the living God to a dead edifice made of dead stones. (Even our creeds that define our denominations are nothing but dead letters.) The damage that was done will never be redressed. Any hope of a true grasp of ecclesiology died not long after Constantine died in 337 a.d. Following the introduction of the temple into our faith, there came the secret language, the remote priest, the silent followers, the rituals, and the vestal virgins. The loss for all of us has been staggering. These things acquired have been a curse for the simple faith Jesus the carpenter launched.
The Pew When the Italian Christians walked into these shiny new buildings which were built in Rome and when the Greeks walked in to the buildings in Constantinople, they discovered there was nowhere to sit down. The Italians dragged in three-legged stools and sat down! On the other hand, when the Christians in Constantinople walked into these shiny new buildings, something odd happened. Someone demanded that, out of respect for Christ, everyone should stand. (The name of the man who did this odd thing is lost to us.) No sitting. No stools. Stand! The result? Today Eastern Orthodox churches still have no place to sit down in their churches.. despite the fact their Sunday ritual is two hours long! Unto this day they have no pews, and scarcely any windows. No wonder the devout Eastern Orthodox
church did not grow like Roman Catholicism! (by the way, later they replaced the three-legged stool with the bench.) Just before the Protestant Reformation, someone figured out how to put a back on a bench. So was born both the chair and the bench with a back. The Protestants jumped at the idea, and so was born the Protestant pew. Grumblingly, the Catholics of Western Europe are gradually taking out the bench and putting in the pew. (In America, almost from the beginning, the Catholics capitulated to the pew, to compete with the Protestants.) It was not until the arrival of the enlightened minds of us twentieth-century evangelicals that we got really ‘New Testament’ and put cushions on our pews. (this way we can at least be comfortable while being bored to death.) One thing is sure: “Church” will always be a building, and meeting in houses as the ekklesia is never going to be the place Christians gather.
The Pulpit The pulpit predates Christianity and is of heathen origin. The heathen priest, standing in a heathen temple, moved out onto a walkway which had a banister around it and made his announcements to the pagan onlookers. This arrangement, by which the priest was separated from the people, was called ambo. The word or a similar one expressing that separation can be found in most European languages. For instance, the lecturn in the Roman Catholic church (still a sort of second ambo which Lutherans also use) is called Ambo in German. Our English pulpit, and the Italian pulpito, are derived from the Latin pulpitum which referred to an elevated platform for performers. The German kanzel (pulpit), as the English chancel, derives from the Latin cancellus (lattice) and signifies something fenced off. It is clear that all these words express separation from the ordinary members, and represent an idea foreign to the primeval church. The first Christian buildings, the basilicas, were also furnished with this heathen arrangement, except that it was now inside the building. It was a platform with a banister around it and it had two elevated parts (the ambos). These ambos, of of which was higher than the other, were used to read from the Gospels and Epistles respectively, but in some instances they were used to make a distinction between a mere reader and a speaker. In the elenth century it became customary to build only one ambo, which was elevated on a pillar. This is the pulpit with which we are familiar. This short extract uncovers the ridiculous origins of many church traditions, there are many more... To obtain a full copy of this book please visit the website www.seedsowers.com
REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 13
Beyond Radical Issues We Dare Not Face
By Gene Edwards (An extract of his book of the same name) Chapter 1 - The Story Behind What We Do We will start by finding out why it is that all of us Christians “go to church’ on Sunday. And at 11 a.m. Always having ‘church’ at 11 a.m. Sunday morning was started by Martin Luther. He drank an awful lot of beer on Saturday night at the local pub. The older he got, the longer he stayed at the pub, and consequently, the later he had to set the morning church service. Today 500,000,000 Protestants routinely (and without question) follow this Sunday tradition because of the beer-drinking habits of a German theologian!
The Pastor Think about it. Where in the New Testament do you find a man–the same man–who (1) preaches every Sunday, (2) marries people, (3) brings a message over a corpse at funerals, then (4) buries it with a prayer, (5) visits old ladies, (6) says prayers over football games, (7) CEO’s a church, (8) presides over elders and deacons, (9) is virtually always in a dress suit, (10) speaks strangely and prays funny, (11) baptises all new converts, and (12) whose office and all the above practices are supposed to be based solidly on the Word of God and found in Scripture. Such a man is not there in your New Testament is he? Yet, today, the man is the central figure in Protestant Christianity. Just how did the pastor idea get into Christianity? Here is the story. See for yourself if it sounds like it sprang out of “solidly based on the Word of God.” Pope Gregory the Great first popularised the term “pastor” in about 550 a.d. He did so by writing a book on the pastoral duties of the priest! The term pastor appears in no Christian literature before that point other than once in a long list of people mentioned in the book of Ephesians. The practical meaning of the word in unknown. Pope Gregory told the Roman Catholic priests to carry out pastoral duties: to visit the sick, teach doctrine, marry the young, sprinkle the babies, conduct the mass, bury the dead, and bless local events (such as festivals). These became forever the Roman Catholic priest’s pastoral duties. No such man and no such duties ever existed in Scripture. Luther came along a thousand years later and slightly altered this list of pastoral duties for Lutheran priests. Gradually the term pastor emerged into Protestant vocabulary throughout the English speaking world. The word pastor replaced the Catholic term priest. The man does not exist in firstcentury literature. Neither do these practices exists in PAGE 12 REVIVAL TIMES
the New Testament. We Anglos carried this pastor idea, which Luther invented, to the ends of the earth. It is now Christianity. If we removed the present pastoral role from Christendom, there would be an almost total collapse of “church’ worldwide. Yet the present day pastoral practice has absolutely no scriptural grounds. Try to find this man in the first century. If we move away from the pastor being centre, we move beyond radical.
Church buildings Until a Roman emperor named Constantine came along (about 300 years after Pentecost), the Christian faith eas the only religion in history that met in homes. It was the only “lay” led movement in the history of religion. Christianity alone had no institutions, no set rituals, no temples. That was unprecedented in human history. It is what made Christianity unique. And virile. And elastic, flexible, and adaptable. It had low overheads! Costs were minimal. Constantine changed all that. All other religions of mankind had these elements: temples, priests, vestal virgins, ritual, a secret vocabulary understood only by the priest, a silent laity. Look at that list again. Christianity now has all of these. (Okay, we Protestants do not have vestal virgins!) In the year 327 a.d. (mark that date, as it is pivotal in Christian history) Constantine ordered the construction of nineteen Christian buildings. That had never happened before. Until then, we met in homes. (At first, buildings were sen as shrines.) These nineteen buildings were constructed in three places. One in Bethlehem and two in Jerusalem (for His birth, crucifixion and resurrection), nine in the city of Constantinople and seven in the city of Rome. Constantine primarily launched these buildings for his brand new city in the east. It was a custommade city, created from the dirt up. The city was uninhabited until it was completed... with empty streets, grand government buildings, and the nine Christian buildings scattered around the city. The city also had an abundance of pagan temples. These were named after a god or a goddess. Constantine, a pagan in mind if not in soul, therefore ordered that each one of the nine Christian buildings be named after someone. Specifically they were to be named after first-century saints! (Hence: St Luke’s church,
St. John’s church, etc. Yep! That is how it began.) In Rome, the same year, Constantine ordered the construction of seven Christian buildings. (One was a shrine placed on the side of a hill just outside the city walls. The slope of the hill was called Vaticanus.) That is how (the curse of) the church building began. Very scriptural, we Bible-practising Protestants, are we not? These buildings later came to be known as churches. So it came about that Christianity joined all the other religions of the world and came to have its very own temples. The effect of these buildings was that we drifted further away from the spirit that had permeated the primeval Christian community. Why this should be so becomes clear when we consider that our word church has no equivalent in the original New Testament. The word church goes back to the Greek kyriakon, belonging to the Lord, which was understood to mean house belonging to the Lord. Later the meaning was extended to refer to the people who gathered in a particular locale as to whole denominations (e.g. Church of England). The New Testament, however, knows only the Ekklesia, the community of the saints. She is the house of the Lord, built of living stones. With the word church our eyes were turned away from the living ekklesia of the living God to a dead edifice made of dead stones. (Even our creeds that define our denominations are nothing but dead letters.) The damage that was done will never be redressed. Any hope of a true grasp of ecclesiology died not long after Constantine died in 337 a.d. Following the introduction of the temple into our faith, there came the secret language, the remote priest, the silent followers, the rituals, and the vestal virgins. The loss for all of us has been staggering. These things acquired have been a curse for the simple faith Jesus the carpenter launched.
The Pew When the Italian Christians walked into these shiny new buildings which were built in Rome and when the Greeks walked in to the buildings in Constantinople, they discovered there was nowhere to sit down. The Italians dragged in three-legged stools and sat down! On the other hand, when the Christians in Constantinople walked into these shiny new buildings, something odd happened. Someone demanded that, out of respect for Christ, everyone should stand. (The name of the man who did this odd thing is lost to us.) No sitting. No stools. Stand! The result? Today Eastern Orthodox churches still have no place to sit down in their churches.. despite the fact their Sunday ritual is two hours long! Unto this day they have no pews, and scarcely any windows. No wonder the devout Eastern Orthodox
church did not grow like Roman Catholicism! (by the way, later they replaced the three-legged stool with the bench.) Just before the Protestant Reformation, someone figured out how to put a back on a bench. So was born both the chair and the bench with a back. The Protestants jumped at the idea, and so was born the Protestant pew. Grumblingly, the Catholics of Western Europe are gradually taking out the bench and putting in the pew. (In America, almost from the beginning, the Catholics capitulated to the pew, to compete with the Protestants.) It was not until the arrival of the enlightened minds of us twentieth-century evangelicals that we got really ‘New Testament’ and put cushions on our pews. (this way we can at least be comfortable while being bored to death.) One thing is sure: “Church” will always be a building, and meeting in houses as the ekklesia is never going to be the place Christians gather.
The Pulpit The pulpit predates Christianity and is of heathen origin. The heathen priest, standing in a heathen temple, moved out onto a walkway which had a banister around it and made his announcements to the pagan onlookers. This arrangement, by which the priest was separated from the people, was called ambo. The word or a similar one expressing that separation can be found in most European languages. For instance, the lecturn in the Roman Catholic church (still a sort of second ambo which Lutherans also use) is called Ambo in German. Our English pulpit, and the Italian pulpito, are derived from the Latin pulpitum which referred to an elevated platform for performers. The German kanzel (pulpit), as the English chancel, derives from the Latin cancellus (lattice) and signifies something fenced off. It is clear that all these words express separation from the ordinary members, and represent an idea foreign to the primeval church. The first Christian buildings, the basilicas, were also furnished with this heathen arrangement, except that it was now inside the building. It was a platform with a banister around it and it had two elevated parts (the ambos). These ambos, of of which was higher than the other, were used to read from the Gospels and Epistles respectively, but in some instances they were used to make a distinction between a mere reader and a speaker. In the elenth century it became customary to build only one ambo, which was elevated on a pillar. This is the pulpit with which we are familiar. This short extract uncovers the ridiculous origins of many church traditions, there are many more... To obtain a full copy of this book please visit the website www.seedsowers.com
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of the Lord has spoken it. He shall arise and have mercy upon Zion; He will build up her walls, heal all her breaches, and once again shall she be the joy of the whole earth! Take heart and comfort! God can find His servants anywhere; omnipotence has instruments where we see them not! He “will take of them for priests and for Levites.” III. Lastly, WHAT IS THE LESSON FROM THIS? I address myself to those of you especially, my dear brothers, whom the grace of God has taken to make priests and Levites unto God. You are near to Him—you serve Him. What effect should this have upon you? First, remember what state you were in before God’s grace took you in hand; then consider what you are called to be. You are made priests and Levites; then ask yourself what you would soon become if His grace were to depart from you? Why, as you were before—only with this difference, that the evil spirit in you would take unto himself seven other spirits more wicked than the first, and enter in and dwell there, and your last state would be worse than the first! Watch then, watch! Watch! God, His grace enabling you to watch, will preserve you to the end. Am I a priest and Levite—a holy vessel set apart before God—serving at His altar, bringing prayers and praises to Him? Ah, yes, I may be a priest and a Levite, but I should be a devil if His grace did not prevent! O watch, watch, watch! “What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.” And oh, what humility this vocation of God should produce! However high we may be raised, we must remember from where the honor comes, for this promotion comes neither from the east nor from the west—it is God’s gift! You, a blasphemer and injurious! You, a careless, godless, Christless man, now raised to be a servant of God, to wait in His courts, and honor His name! Be thankful that you are lifted so high, but wonder, and fear, and tremble for all the goodness that God has made to pass before you. What am I, and what is my father’s house, that You have brought me up to now; to pray and my prayer to be heard, yet not worthy to lift my eyes to the place where Your Honor dwells; to have Your Holy Spirit dwelling in me, and yet not worthy that You should come under my roof? Be humble, brother—it will help you to watch. Watching is done best in a lowly manner. And since He has taken us for priests and for Levites, let us do every office heartily as unto the Lord. If others in this world can serve God coldly, yet, my brothers, you and I cannot afford to do so; we were such sinners that if we have been forgiven, we must love Him! Those who had but little sin to be cleansed may not have much love to lavish on their Redeemer; not so with me or you—“I love most; I’ve more forgiven; I’m a miracle of grace.” Those who had some good principles instilled into them by early training, or some sort of preparation PAGE 14 REVIVAL TIMES
to receive the gospel may not feel their deep indebtedness to the wonderful working of the Spirit, but those of us who were steeped in sin, and hardened in heart, when we are saved we must magnify the power of God; and moved by that feeling we must serve Him heartily with our whole spirit, soul, and body! A man who feels what grace has done for him cannot help throwing his whole soul into it. I used to know a man whom I often heard swear—on the other side of the river, in the town where I was, and when converted I remember his prayers; they used to rather trouble us; they were so loud. It was not everybody that knew the reason why; he had been so accustomed to swear loud that he could not help praying loud, and when a man has been very loud for the devil, he cannot help being loud for Christ! Some of those dear Methodist brethren who cry out, “Amen!” extremely loud, do it, I hope, because they feel the love of God in Christ on account of what great things have been done for them. Let those go the common track of service that have gone the common track of sin, but let those serve the Lord with all their heart, and mind, and strength that have been unusual sinners! Bring your alabaster box, O great sinner; break it on His blessed head that pardoned you; wash His feet with your tears, and wipe them with the hairs of your head, for where extraordinary love has been experienced, extraordinary love ought to be the outgrowth, and extraordinary service ought to be the consequence! Once again, if the Lord has taken of us to be His priests and Levites, let us serve Him with great thankfulness and joy. If any people should be glad, I am sure it is those people who feel the abounding of His mercy in forgiveness, having heard those glad tidings, as it were, from the lips of Jesus Himself, “Your sins which are many are all forgiven you: go in peace”; they always have something to stimulate their gratitude, and flood them with sunshine. “I am very poor,” says one, “but, never mind; poor as I am, I am no longer a drunkard or a swearer; it may be I feel weak and sickly in body; never mind that. I am free from the burden of sin upon my soul.” Or, “I am unknown, quite unknown I have nobody to come and see me; never mind that, I am known to God. I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me! My great wounds have been healed in Jesus’ precious blood.” Why, you have always cause to be glad, my dear brothers and sisters, if you have had your sins forgiven; you have a fountain opened in your soul of love to Christ, and joy in God—quite as surely as there is a fountain open for the cleansing of your sins in the side of Jesus. So let me close by saying surely we ought to serve God with great confidence in Him. If He has made us priests and Levites to Him, why, then, we may trust Him to do anything! “He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
Jesus.” (Phil. 3:14) We hear continually about “Weight Watchers.” O that we watched our spiritual growth as carefully! I believe in instant purity: “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanest us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) I do not believe in instant maturity. Faith in the finished work of Christ is one thing. To add to your faith, as Peter says in 2 Peter 1:57, is something else. As a tree must be pruned regularly to bring it to maturity, so we need pruning. It is easy to sing, “And pour contempt on all my pride.” If I do that at all, I will do it conveniently protecting myself from any “bleeding.” It is when the Lord does it - or worse still when He uses some other human being (less spiritual than I am) to do the pruning - then can I kiss the rod? This is a process in spiritual growth. Can I take it cheerfully when I am slighted, when my name is cast out as an evil thing (though I am totally innocent)? Can I joyfully help to promote another to a position that I would like and which I am more capable of handling? I heard a preacher asking another if folks came to the altar at his last meeting. He replied, “Yes, but most of them are altar tramps.” It’s easier to go to the altar than to get on the cross. There is no magic in a trip to the altar. You will not grow an inch by walking a few yards to the altar, unless there is a total repentance and a holy vow to God that you will not fall into the same hole again. That holy band of “Heroes of Faith” in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews staggers me. They had no Bibles, no millions of cassettes as we have, no Bible seminars, no daily radio Bible
teaching, and (fortunate souls) no Gospel T.V. preachers whining about lack of funds (when did the Lord run out of supplies?). Yet what things these folks in Hebrews 11 accomplished: subdued whole kingdoms (O that some person rich in faith could subdue the worldwide kingdom of the drug trade), wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. What miracles, what men, what faith! These “pattern” folks of our faith did not get to the heights in one leap: “They climbed the steep ascent to Heaven Through peril, toil, and pain. O God, may grace to us be given, To follow in their train.” Asked why he was used of the Lord so greatly in China, Hudson Taylor replied, “God had looked long for a man weak enough, and He found me.” He takes the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Spiritual wisdom does not come with years, neither does maturity. The key to both is obedience. Whatsoever He saith unto YOU, do it. An insatiable thirst for God will produce an unquenchable love for holiness (as He is Holy), resulting in a passion for the lost. Remember, friend, you are just as spiritual as you want to be.
The Martyr’s Crown The saints of old were beaten, tried, Condemned and even crucified These martyr men beat no retreat When flames were licking at their feet. They saw the tyrant’s brandished steel, But still they offered no appeal. They struck no bargain for their lives, For their children or their wives. All slowly roasted in the flames While angels wrote each of their names Within a book God calls His own To be proclaimed before His throne.
Then we shall know of these renown When each receives his martyr’s crown, When God shall say to these, “Well done You ran the race, pressed on, and won, When in that race men said, ‘Insane.’ But now I gladly own your name. Now you are home! Come dwell with Me In joy through all eternity.”
Leonard Ravenhill
Leonard Ravenhill was a powerful preacher and author of many stirring books, including the classic, “Why Revival Tarries.” Formerly one of England’s outstanding evangelists, he went to be with the Lord on Thanksgiving Day weekend 1994.
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Signs in the Sky
The Great Revivalists - Leonard Ravenhill What Do I Still Lack?
By Leonard Ravenhill What percentage of responsibility for my spiritual maturity is the Lord’s, and how much of it is mine? To say that I alone am responsible for my soul’s development is conceit. To say that all the responsibility is the Lord’s is impudence. I find it humbling, inspiring, and challenging to recognize that the greatest saints who ever lived did not have a bigger Bible than I have, they just knew it better. Indeed, they had far less of the divine Revelation. Today we have the complete message of God to man. He has nothing more to say to us. As the old hymn says, “What more can He say than to you He hath said?” God has no “P.S.” to add to the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. For years the Holy Scriptures were wrapped up in tongues that only the scholars could read. “There was no open vision in those days.” (I Sam. 3:1) Then, blessed day, the whole counsel of God was released in our mother tongue. With this unveiling came the glad news of the priesthood of the believers -Hallelujah! Do you wonder that Bishop Walsham How bursts into song about the Holy Word: “It is a golden casket, where gems of Truth are stored. It is the Heaven-drawn picture of Christ, the Living Word.” Trees are fascinating to most of us. I like to see the burdened fruit trees showing off their labor. The English like their mighty oaks and the Americans their redwood trees. At the moment, in the area where I write, the peach trees are richly endowed with fruit; but, it does not grow already canned. No! God gave us the fruit, we do the canning. Trees do not grow furniture, even in this scientific age. We have the trees, from them we make the chairs, etc. So it is with the spiritual life. Here is a stunning truth from Second Peter, PAGE 10 REVIVAL TIMES
Chapter one, verse three: “His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain TO LIFE AND GODLINESS.” Paul backs up Peter in this area when he says, “How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32) And to top these precious words, here comes Paul again with a staggering statement: “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; HEIRS OF GOD, AND JOINT-HEIRS WITH CHRIST” Stop there? NO, add the remainder: “...If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.” (Rom. 8:16-17) With all this limitless resource to inherit in this life, why then, O why, do we settle for minimum spirituality? These Scriptures just quoted shatter all our excuses for carnal Christianity and explode all our feeble excuses on bumper-sticker evangelism: “Christians are not perfect, just forgiven.” (Some backslider must have written that one.) Sinning is not permitted to believers. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.” (1 John 3:9) Not that it is impossible to sin; but it is, by the blood of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit, possible not to sin. John again shouts the triumphant note, “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) God, then, has made it possible for you and me to have victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil! Here are the Master’s commandments to His own. These are not options but imperatives. With His enabling and our striving, we can explore what Lowrey called “the possibilities of Grace.” We can leave the playpen in the Spiritual Nursery and go on unto perfection.” (Heb. 6:1) Here are His commands: • “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5.21) • “Building up yourselves on your most holy faith...” (Jude 20; Rom. 10:17) • “Keep yourselves in the love of God” (by obedience to His Word) (Jude 21) • “Put on the whole armor of God...” (equipment for beating Satan) (Eph. 6:11) • The Scripture is very clear here: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Christian maturity is not a weekend operation. On the other hand, remember there is no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity. While we are in the flesh, we “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Interpreting the stars - By Stephen Turnham
“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:14-18
G
od designed the universe to show His glory and character and for the benefit of his ultimate creature - man. He designed them in his own image, spirit, soul and body, in order that they could know him in fullness. He gave him a brain with as many cells as galaxies in the universe! The stars and planets are placed so that they can serve clear functions when viewed from earth. In this sense earth is at the centre of God’s purposes, as everything rotates like clockwork in the universe, wheels within wheels. Firstly we are told that stars mark the passage of time using ‘signs’, seasons, days and years. It’s interesting to note that ‘weeks’ are not mentioned at this point. We have to ask why did Jesus, the creator, deem this necessary? Why did he not just have another less complex system for lighting the earth and why day and night? Most people DO NOT consider these questions, even believers, because as humans we tend to think of our present life now as being ‘normal’. This is because we were born (post Noah) into an already corrupted age. The earth was created good, but later because of sin God subjected it to vanity and death. God did this, not Satan, because Satan doesn’t have such power. Why did God do this? “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Rom 8:19-21)
The ‘sons of God’ mentioned first here are probably not we Christians, but most likely the angels created before us. The ‘children of God’, disciples of Jesus are those in ‘the glorious liberty’. The ‘sons of God’, the angels of heaven, are the unseen armies of God (see Gen 6, Heb 2:5) good and bad in whose conflict we are embroiled. Heaven is really the power in control and earth is truly in spiritual darkness. Here on earth is all the sin that there is in the universe. Not good! Mankind’s true situation is bit like an animal that is born in captivity, in a zoo. It has no idea where it really came
from and it’s parents cannot explain it to them because they don’t remember. As it grows it adapts to it’s conditions in order to exist and have a form of life. It only ever knows it’s captors as those who feed him and it has no hope of escape. It’s not even interested in escaping and even if the zoo animal escapes it has no idea what to do or where to go! The point is that this creature is alive and from his perspective considers things to be ‘normal’ based purely on it’s growing experience and current environment. However from the outside we the ‘master’ know it’s a captive and not in it’s proper environment. We know that the zoo world was designed and built by our higher intelligence for a purpose unknown to the animals. The same is true for humans on the earth, an earth which does not resemble the one God originally created. Even so, earth still has a measure of glory that reveals the truth, but it’s dying, wearing out because of man’s sinful behaviour and vanity! Paul says that Satan (the fallen arch angel) is still the god of this world and he kills, steals and destroys persuading men to co-operate with him in it. Men think that this current world is ‘normal’ life, but as we know Jesus (the creator) disagrees. He came that we might have life and escape what he calls this kingdom of darkness (Matt 6:23 ). Notice how Paul again refers back to the creation when informing us of the ruler of this world: “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. ... For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (1 C orin 4:1-6)
These are incredible words of liberation. The Bible reveals that in order for God to have genuine ‘children’ who can know him fully he has deliberately put us in a PLACE and TIME (Acts 15:18; 17:2427 ) in a complex matrix of his devising which is under his sovereign control (E xod 13:12, Heb 1:3). The purpose of this TIME frame is to choose for eternity
who we will follow. Of course God is incredibly complex and far beyond our understanding, we are like a maggots trying to understand a computer! This gap in our knowledge is revealed to Isaiah and notice what God uses as a comparison for his thoughts: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9) This reveals that the enormity and complexity of the universe and the immeasurable distances we see represents God’s incredible thoughts! Astronomers and stargazers look up and suddenly discover this huge fact and cannot see the end of space. However, the real purpose of these observations is lost on them, because they try to understand them from a humanistic perspective and miss this point. Of course added to the mix is the great deceiver Satan, the alien angel, who takes the opportunity to suggest an alternative interpretation. This was also Eve’s original downfall and the curse of man ever since. Satan wants to keep us in the dark, so that we can remain under his control fighting with him in the war against the church!
Babylonian religion It was the Babylonians who turned the stars into occultist religious worship and sorcery. This is the big deception Satan and his angels introduced in order to distract mankind from the main purpose of the visible heavens - the enormity of God’s thoughts. Satan also wants to know his end date (his time is short), and evil men seek to know the future without obedience to God’s Word. Stargazing was, and is, the ultimate expression of disobedience. It’s worship, bowing down, to Lucifer’s the fallen star! It’s the worship of the physical creation as containing something more than God intended. Behind this facade of ‘good’ and ‘light’ demonic and angelic spirits are able to possess human minds and bodies for their own pleasures of evil. Isaiah reveals this huge error to the continued on page 19
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and powerful. Some of the other disciples even received ‘thoughts’ that they could become joint rulers with Jesus in this ‘fantasy’ kingdom of Israel that they imagined Jesus would build. But, as we now see in hindsight, this was not the Messiah’s purpose - rather it was that he would be THE holy sacrifice; ‘the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world’. Sin (Satanic thinking) is the big problem that is killing everyone and everything in creation and so Jesus dealt with it! His purpose was to put an end to sin and the curse of the Law (that reveals sin) and then fulfil the promise to Abraham of the Spirit. But why did Jesus need to build his own church body? Why not make Israel a new kingdom again? Surely this was still the logical thing to do and what all Israel wanted to happen (and what some people still want to happen today!). These are important questions to answer otherwise we too may be led astray and, like Peter, we will be in danger of being a mouthpiece for Satan’s thoughts and part of his world system (Luke 17:21 see also Isaiah 57:15; P sa 51:17 ). We do not want to be false prophets who pervert the work that Christ achieved through the cross (2 Corin 7:2). Any false gospel that promises ‘your best life now’ or material rewards for giving to the church etc. may look good, but it leads you away from the cross. To get a clearer vision of Jesus’ real ‘disciples’ and ‘his church’ we not only see it’s incredible beginnings in Acts, but we also have the privilege of looking to the end of time itself to see what shall be revealed upon his return, His pure Bride. The books of Revelation and Acts give us an amazing vision of the household of Jesus from which we can realise who we are and how we can partake of this ‘divine city’, both now and in the glory to come. Here are passages regarding the church of Jesus. PAGE 16 REVIVAL TIMES
We have annotated important observations (in red brackets) to show the deeper meaning:
First: the end from the beginning (R ev 21:9-27)
“Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” (The Bride is the ‘church’ of Jesus (like a wife) that has come through all the tribulations of history - the final body of Christ) And he carried me away (they left earth behind) in the Spirit to a great, high mountain (the Kingdom of Heaven is the mountain of God), and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, (the holy city and the Bride are revealed to be the same thing, called the new Jerusalem, and notice that it comes from heaven and not from earth) having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. (this speaks of its purity, holiness and rarity, the key word here is ‘like’, so it is not an actual building but a metaphor of holy beauty) It had a great, high wall,(those outside cannot see into it because of the hedge of protection) with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed (The early church was founded on the remnant of Israel who believed from every tribe and angels guard the people of God, see also Gen 3:24) — on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. (These twelve were chosen by Jesus to form a new covenant foundation with him being the chief cornerstone! No longer the foundation stones of the earthly Jerusalem which are only a shadow) And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls.(Gold symbolises love and the measurement is according to king Jesus against whom all things are measured) The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement.(The heavenly church is big and the holy cube symbolises, God’s
government of equality for all in God’s dwelling place) The wall was built of jasper,(hard and impenetrable) while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. (These qualities speak of the glory of the true body of pure faith, hope and love as seen in heaven) The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel.The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. (Jewels symbolise martyrs that gave their lives for Christ) And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl,(The wisdom of God is revealed through his dealings with Israel and the church through angels) and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.(It couldn’t be clearer, the church (people) has no temple building because it IS the building and Christ the Lamb is in the midst of us with no barriers, the true spiritual temple) And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.(the light of the church is the revelation of Jesus, the sun and moon are for the earth not required in his glory) By its light will the nations walk,(the real church is formed from many nations that obey the truth) and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it (every knee will bow to the king of heaven), and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.(the doors are always open for all who believe in Jesus) They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations. (only the best will come into the church) But nothing unclean will ever enter it, (no demon or sin can be a part of Jesus church) nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, (the sinless standards of behaviour in the church) but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (the only way to enter the church is to be born again of the Spirit, John 3 and be without sin John 5:18 through faith in Christ). What a beautiful vision John was given to express the glorious and spiritual magnificence of the church of the Lamb, the New Jerusalem the very city that Abraham our father sought after (Heb 11:8-10) and we are part of
be of God, but those that be of men.” (Matt 16:21-23)
“As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed.” (Matt 17:22)
They were distressed and confused by these words of Jesus because it just didn’t fit with their mindset, their ‘dream’ of the united and restored Israeli kingdom. Why was it that Jesus came to Israel and did not become the King? Why didn’t he try to reform the religion of his day (run by the elders of Israel)? What kind of a ‘kingdom’ was Jesus trying to bring anyway? It just wasn’t church as they new it, none of it was making sense to them. Little did they know that the final judgement on Israel was just around the corner and the age of Law about to end! And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. (John 9:39-42)
All disciples of Jesus will be tested against the Word of God, just as Satan tested Jesus at the beginning of his ministry in the desert. These three temptations (or tests) are designed to neutralise disciples in the spiritual war between the two kingdoms - heaven and earth, light and darkness. Satan offered Jesus three earthly things if he would submit to him: 1. Provision, 2. Protection and 3. Power. Jesus (even though God) denied himself all these things on the earth and refused to bow to Satan and to submit to his ‘leadership’. Sadly, today many ‘Christian’ men and women have fallen at
these basic tests (temptations) and have taken up Satan’s offers. However, there is a terrible price to pay for cooperation with the bad greedy world system over which Satan is lord. James tells us that wilful sin (submission to Satan) eventually leads to death of the spirit, soul and body with no hope of resurrection! (James 1:15). Remember that he was speaking to disciples! Only through 100% commitment and wholeheartedly obeying Jesus Christ can we have victory over sin and Satan. We don’t earn our salvation, but we can lose it if we turn back to worldly ways and obey Satan again! (Matt 25: 11-12; Heb 6:4-8; Gal 5:4; 20-21; J as 4:4). “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt 16:24-26)
To put it bluntly, if you don’t like this idea of ‘losing your life here on earth’ you cannot be a disciple of Jesus, because Satan will be able to deceive you and use you for his purposes:ambition, pride, lust and money. You cannot be in two camps at once, you cannot serve God and mammon (greed, money). It’s simply not possible to follow Christ in purity of conscience if you flirt with the world’s lusts (see also Rev 3:15-17). If you try to mix both together it creates lukewarm hypocrisy and makes Jesus sick! (Rev 3:16).
False teachers bring other gospels that look good
Satan works through such deceived people (just as much as God works through true apostles) who have not managed to break free from his temptation for personal glory and status. We saw evidence of this in action when Peter (without the Spirit) tried to prevent Jesus from going
to Jerusalem and to his death which was according to God’s will. Jesus turned to him and rebuked him harshly seeing the ‘spirit’ behind his words! Incredibly Peter was ‘unwittingly’ used by Satan, but Jesus wasn’t fooled. He could see the unseen forces at work, even through Peter at that time. Most people who are being used as false prophets do not realise that this is the case, because they have a serious ‘blind spot’ which prevents them from fully grasping the real truth of Scripture. This relates to the condition of their conscience, because they have compromised the Word of God to better themselves in this carnal life. (see also
Gal 2:12-14)
Satan’s goal in all this is to get us to focus our minds on the things of earth, the things of man (things he has led us to build ourselves). Within his extensive hierarchical value system he offers pride and position. He does this to cause a ‘hindrance’ to the true sacrificial message of the cross which is obedience unto death. Peter wanted Jesus to be the ‘human Lord’ over Israel, a ruling king and not one who dies a criminals death. The death of Jesus the Messiah made no sense to him, because as a child he had been taught a false gospel by his leaders. Thus his thoughts about this were in error and revealed to be Satanic in origin! Satan really did know what Jesus would do and wanted to stop it, but he could not because Jesus was a free man with authority over all, even over Satan. Jesus was obeying the Father (within) to go to Jerusalem as the Lamb of God to disarm and judge Satan forever. Satan threw everything at him to make him deny the Father, to make him act as God and to save himself, but Jesus would not and did not, hallelujah! The true gospel is about obedience through suffering not being rich continued on page 16
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A Message For Our Times PART 2 - By Stephen Turnham
“As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. And behold, you are to them like one who sings sensual songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes*—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” (Ezekiel 33:30-33) (*judgement).” Welcome to the second in a 12 part series looking at who the ‘church’ really are and why.
PART 2 - WHY DID JESUS BUILD THINGS DIFFERENTLY?
J
esus Christ often referred to himself as the ‘Son of Man’ and in this way linked himself and ministry quite deliberately to the prophets like Ezekiel quoted above. It strikes us that this passage could easily describe what is going on in much of modern day Christianity, especially in the wealthiest countries of the west. Many are hearing the Word, but they are not ‘hearing and obeying’, and this is because life’s too comfortable and convenient. In the religious circles there’s even the avoidance of adult baptism by full immersion, the denying of the Holy Spirit gifts for today and even the denial the ‘person’ of the Holy Spirit. Many cults and all other religions deny that Jesus is God come in the flesh, saying that he was only a good man or prophet (Islam, JWs, Mormons etc.). Many mainstream church organisations support political resistance, demonstrating, rioting and even justify war itself which are all forbidden by Jesus and not valid values for those who claim to follow him (Matt 5:9; 1 Pet 2:13,14). Tragically God’s ‘blessings’ are also being manipulated for financial gain. By presumption false teachers use the laws of sowing and reaping and tithing PAGE 8 REVIVAL TIMES
as a just way to gain riches, fleecing the body of Christ. Most believers in poorer nations are near starving or homeless and yet many are greatly blessed with spiritual revival! The wealth of the world is a huge barrier to entering and experiencing the true kingdom of God (Deut 8; Luke 1:53; 8:14; 18:25. As mentioned in part 1, Jesus came to Israel in total fulfilment of ALL the Messianic prophecies. The Holy Spirit and the Father were literally dwelling in Christ’s physical body, yes in his physical flesh, because his was declared Holy, separated from Satan, free from the curse of this earth through his supernatural conception in the virgin Mary (Col 2:9). He was the last Adam (1 Corin 15:45). As he grew he was also separate from the world’s hierarchical system of control from both the Jewish and Roman state rules. Jesus announced that Satan ‘hath nothing in me’ (John 14:30) and Paul calls Jesus the ‘last Adam’, because, like Adam, he was without sin. Jesus was the holy tent or tabernacle in which the Father and the Spirit dwelt - three in one! This is what Paul told the Colossians: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” (Col 2:9) This means that Jesus was the express image of the Godhead, this means that He had all power and authority. God as a man! The ‘Son of Man’, the Messiah promised through Moses and all the prophets.
The Lost Sheep of Israel At that time Jesus was quite insistent that he had only come to reach the ‘lost sheep of Israel’, so keeping the Word of Scripture that the Father had given to them (Matt 15:24). The traditional Jews among the people, (probably all the Jews in fact) had developed the idea that Messiah would come and deliver them from the occupying powers and set up another physical and political Kingdom like that of David or Solomon (Luke 19:11). The idea was that Israel would once again be the great invincible kingdom and rule the nations around them from the Temple. You might call this the ‘Israeli Dream’, it was this that also drove Judas Iscariot and the zealots. Today the world is mostly influenced by the ‘American Dream’ and they seek to achieve this wealth by monetarism, materialism and militarism. However, at the time of Christ’s first coming, we find that this ‘Israeli dream’ was not God’s plan and this distressed the disciples at first and eventually disillusioned Judas to betray him! “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that
that city if our names are written in heaven! This city is the Bride and the church is the city, can you see it? Church is not physical bricks and mortar (as on earth), that will crash-land on the earth one day and we will all walk into it - no, this is a visionary representation (metaphor) of a greater spiritual reality that is not of this world and is without the corruption of sin. It’s actually you and me with God dwelling in us all together in his glory in the future world! It’s hard to grasp this because we have only ever known this dark sinful world, and evil men have corrupted the gospel which is no gospel at all, but a perversion of it. The church or bride is so much more glorious than a cathedral or any human temple, those earthly things are an abomination to God! Now let’s look at Acts and see what happened when heaven came to earth and entered into the foundation of the twelve apostles and the other 108 or so present, to kickstart this great work of the church body. Acts 2:1-36
“When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. (the mighty rushing wind came from heaven and they were all meeting in a large house not in the temple) And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them (God appears as a fire when he enters earth’s dimension, just like the burning bush of Moses). And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.(the Kingdom power of the Spirit came into them and proclaimed the truth to all nations present) Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. (the Jews represented every dispersed Jew on earth - every nation was gathered as promised by the prophets of old) And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. (The Spirit was communicating supernaturally to
every nationality - reversing the Babel curse see Gen 11:1-9) And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes (converted Gentiles), Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” (This was the correct question to ask) But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” (to the natural mind it appears crazy or drunken) But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.(9am - so it was an early prayer meeting) But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: (This Joel prophecy is now completely fulfilled by this visitation of the Spirit!) “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, (the apostles and women, including Mary Jesus mother, were in that room! Plus later all those who believed were from all nations!) and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. (this promise to Israel was fulfilled at Pentecost right then and birthed the kingdom in mankind - heaven, even God himself, came to earth forming the new temple building out of people - living stones) And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ (this all symbolises the appearing of Christ, his sacrifice and the birth of the church a magnificent day [not a day of judgement that’s on his second return]). “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus
of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know (Jesus fulfilled this part of the Joel prophecy)— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Peter now fully understands God’s purpose in Christ’s death and resurrection) God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it (God’s Spirit cannot die!). For David says concerning him, “‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’ (Psalm 16) “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne,(the throne is a spiritual one) he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades [place of the dead, not hell], nor did his flesh see corruption.This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses (they met the risen Jesus over a 40 day period Acts 1). Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God (equal to God), and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,“‘The Lord (Yahweh) said to my Lord (Jesus), “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ (the apostles knew that Jesus had ascended to heaven’s throne - not an earthly throne! The church body on earth is his footstool - enemies converted to faith) Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Peter announces that ALL the old house of Israel have been told of Jesus Christ being made Lord) Now when they heard this they were REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 17
cut to the heart (the Spirit brings conviction of who Jesus really is - the Messiah), and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent (change your mind) and be baptized (death into Christ from this world and separation from Satan and the curse of the Law) every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, (all need sins to be forgiven even Jews!) and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (the whole point was to receive the promise of the Spirit which is the seal of God’s ownership see Eph 1:13) For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (God knows who the remnant of the Jews would be, the predestined ones and now the firstborn. It is God who calls these people to himself) And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” (Peter gave them much more teaching than this brief summary and persuaded them to give up their Judaism and their sinful lifestyles) So those who received his word were baptised, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Baptism happened straight away.What were they added too? Yes to the household of Jesus - the church, the new nation of heaven and they stopped their Jewish ways for justification) (Acts 2:1-36) (see also I saiah 66:7-9). So we see that, at Pentecost, even before one Gentile was saved, there were these two houses present in the land. As stated in part 1 we had the house of Israel unbelieving Jews and the house of
Jesus, the remnant church of the firstborn who were predestined to believe from every nation where they had been scattered, both made of Jewish men and women by natural birth. Jesus had built his church, the people of the heavenly Jerusalem, founded on a new covenant in his blood and Spirit (not a renewed old covenant) but a new separated body (a new spiritual nation) which has its true home in the heavenly kingdom (and new earth to come), from where he now reigns – until sent back by the Father as judge. Membership of this heavenly spiritual church is the only way to escape the ‘crooked generation’ and be saved from God’s wrath to come. You must be born again! Peter again reminds us of these points when writing his first letter to the church assemblies which he considers to be like a new ‘nation’ and a ‘priesthood’ called out of Satan’s world system and out of Judaism. “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy (his church).” (1 Pet 2:8-10)
Finally, in considering why Jesus built his church, his way by the Spirit, think of how Paul and
all the travelling apostles then preached to the heathen nations that were worshipping idols in temples and shrines. “Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:23-31) n
Next time in Part 3 we consider: Who are the real house of Jesus? To read this entire message in pdf format please email your request to: Stephen@omega-ministries.org
WATCH & PRAY “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” Matt 26:41 “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.” Mark 13:32-34 “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” 1 Peter 4:7 PAGE 18 REVIVAL TIMES
the sin-bitten hosts of men because they have been sin-bitten themselves, and remember it! They have looked and been cured, and they still remember the cure, and rejoice in it. Another reason why the Lord takes the vilest of men to make them the saintliest is that He might openly triumph over Satan. How the devil must feel defeated when such a man as Saul is taken straight away from persecuting to preaching! Surely it makes Satan bite his chains, and gnash his teeth when he loses his servants so. Just when he has trained them up, and got them into fine condition for doing mischief, in comes the officer of divine grace, arrests them, and changes their hearts! You know none ever do the devil so much mischief as those who once did him service; they know the ins and outs of his castle; where to attack it; they understand so much of his devices and tactics, that they become all the more powerful adversaries when they are converted. All heaven rings with rapture when a great sinner is saved; and all hell howls with dismay when one of the arch host bows down to kiss the feet of Christ and receive the mercy of God! Glory be to God when He takes those who would have been deepest damned, and sets them highest among the saved on earth to be priests and Levites unto Him! By these means also He secures another end—He encourages poor penitents, for when a sinner, under a sense of sin, meets with a brother in Christ who was once like himself, but is now living near to God, and serving Him acceptably, he is much encouraged. “Why,” he thinks to himself, “is this how God receives sinners when they turn to Him? Perhaps He will receive me.” And if he gets into conversation with one of those whom God has made priests and Levites, he says, “Tell me what the Lord has done for your soul.” And the minister, being a man of like passions, and having had like experiences, delights to describe the works and ways of God with hardened sinners and old offenders; and then the man who is seeking finds in the other a guide who is touched with the feeling of his infirmity, is very helpful to him, and much blessed of God to enter into the secrets of his heart, and lead him to the cross! If there is here some great rebel against God, I think he ought to take encouragement to turn unto the Lord and live, for surely, when God so treats His most defiant enemies as to make them His most honoured ministers, there should be some comfort for the great sinner to seek the Lord while yet He waits to be gracious! And do you not think this is done very much for the encouragement of the church of God? I know, as myself one of its humble members, I often need to be solaced by seeing what God’s hand can do; we ought to walk by faith, and so I trust we do, but when we see sinners converted, it gives zest to our fellowship and zeal to our enterprise; we all of us feel the happier for it! I hardly expect to see as
many converts in the tabernacle as there used to be; we have had so very many brought to God, that those of you who are left, I almost fear, have resisted too much the wooing and warnings of divine love; indeed, there are so few comparatively left that we have not the opportunities we once had when the mass of the congregation was not converted. Perhaps there are few of you whom God has not blessed, and I do long to see a fresh ingathering of converts; it would make my heart glad, and it would make all the church glad if we heard of some great sinners being saved. I pray God sometimes that He would save a great multitude of the priests of the Church of Rome, and the Church of England. He did in olden times bring a great multitude of the priests to believe the gospel, and why should He not again? If He wills to call to Himself some of the lowest of the low, and the vilest of the vile, and make them wonders of His grace, His omnipotent fiat shall be instantly obeyed! Why should He not? Why should He not? He has done so—why should He not again? He has done so, I say, and the text says, “I will take of them for priests and for Levites.” Why should He not still go on to take from strange quarters a people who shall serve Him? Does He not say, “I will”? Suppose it should ever come to this, as some say it will that the churches, many of them, will desert the old truths of God? They say the ministers will become dumb dogs that cannot bark, and one by one their testimony will be silent; they predict every candlestick will be taken out of its place, and the whole head will be sick, and the whole heart faint, and Zion will be under a cloud, and there will be none to help her, they say, and none to lift up the banner for the truth of God. What then? Why, then God would arise and take again from the fishermen in their boats, new apostles; and from the lowest dens of iniquity, and the worst haunts of vice; from the saloons of frivolity where the rich resort, and from the chambers of commerce, and the palaces of merchandise where buyers and sellers make their contracts, He would take a fresh staff of men! Out of the roughest material He can make the finest fabric! Out of the newest recruits He can raise a noble regiment to show forth His praise, to do His work, and to secure victory for His cause! If some were unworthy holders of His vineyard, and brought Him no revenue, He would put aside those wicked men, and send forth fresh labourers, and give His vineyard unto others, for He will get glory unto His name! He “will take of them for priests and for Levites.” Never say it is a dark day; never say God has forgotten His church; never give way to despairing fits and dream of horrible times coming that are not to come! Verily, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” and the glory of God shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it, for the mouth continued on page 14
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not this grace? I think every time Paul preached Jesus Christ, he would say to himself—“I used to call Him the Nazarene; I abhorred Him and used terrible language; here is great mercy, boundless mercy that He should take me to be His servant, permit me to labor for His people, and suffer for His sake.” Next to this, do you not think that the Lord loves to display His power? Men who are tamers of wild beasts will frequently, when they have subdued a lion, take delight in showing to the people how obedient that lion will be to them, and how every word that the lion-tamer chooses to say, the lion will regard and pay attention to. Thus when the Lord takes a great sinner—after He has tamed him, removed his heart of stone, and given him a heart of flesh, He desires to show how, without the use of the whip, without a threatening look or an angry word, He causes His enemy to become His diligent servant, His earnest friend! O brothers and sisters, it shows the divine power of love on a man when he is so broken down that the things he sneered at, he now preaches with all his might! Surely it showed the power of divine grace when Paul avowed Christ openly and vehemently preached, exposing himself to persecution and death, that same gospel which his soul had previously nauseated! Yes, which his zeal, full of bitterness, had kindled to exterminate! God takes great sinners, and then appoints and qualifies them to be priests and Levites in order that He might show the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe. Again, does not God do this to show His sovereignty? Can we ever forget that attribute of the Almighty? Divine grace, while it comes freely to us, is dispensed freely by God, according to the good pleasure of His will. I should like to hear that text thundered throughout Christendom—“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” No man has any right to the mercy of God! We have all sinned ourselves into rebellion—the only rights we have are the right to be condemned, and the right to be cast into hell; all the rights of man that he can appeal to God for in equity, are merged in the wrongs for which he is responsible. If the Lord has mercy, it is His own will to do it—He can withhold it if it pleases Him. So He selects the most degraded—those who have gone farthest from Him, and takes them into His church; no, more—He advances them into eminent positions of service in His church, that all His people may know that the Most High rules in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of this earth, and none can stay His hand, or say to Him, “What are You doing?” He lifts up the poor from the dunghill, and sets him among princes, even among the princes of His people. His mercy, power, and sovereignty are displayed when He takes of them to be priests and Levites. PAGE 6 REVIVAL TIMES
But does He not thereby secure to Himself the most loving service? I have sometimes thought (I hope I am not censorious) as I have observed with pain the superficiality of a great deal of what is called “ministry” in these days; that kind of superficiality, I mean, in which little is said about the corruption and depravity of the heart; little about the experience of the child of God when under the law; little, far too little, about the glory of that grace that takes such worms of the dust to make them one with Christ! I have often thought that this avoidance of, not to say this aversion to deep plowing may be accounted for by the fact that the preachers probably had not been allowed to go very far into outward sin; they never had any very deep lawwork upon their souls, never had much awakening of conscience, nor felt much of the powers of the world to come. They got their religion very easily; and so knowing little of soul humbling sensations, they could not go very deeply into the experience of the children of God. When the Lord calls a grievous sinner to make a gracious example of him, it is just the reverse; the man who has done business in deep waters knows what sin means; tortured with a sense of his own crimes, he has been like those wretched culprits who surrender themselves to justice, because their conscience makes liberty vex them. He knows what pardon means, for he has found peace after great bitterness, and got remission after the gnawing of despair; he knows what the conflicts of God’s people are, for he has had many fierce encounters with the lusts that beset him within, and the temptations that assailed him from without; and now when he opens his mouth, the testimony he bears is from experience—he speaks of things which he has tasted and handled of the good word of God. John Newton, to whom I referred just now, could not do otherwise than livingly and lovingly preach the word of God; you could not have squeezed from him a dainty essay or a flowery sermon, because nothing else would have consorted and accorded with his experience, but a faithful tale of the way the Lord had led him, and a forcible exposition of what the Lord had taught him; he had been such a sinner that it must be grace which saved him, and he would have belied all his inward feelings if he had not proclaimed the grace of God! And so with Bunyan—if he had not tearfully wept over sinners, and preached Jesus Christ in His fullness, as the Saviour of Jerusalem sinners, he would have been opposing all that animated his own breast, and all that burned and glowed for utterance. God, therefore, takes some of these men who have gone far astray, that He might have warm-hearted, intensely earnest men, who must proclaim the gospel because they have felt its power! They love much because they have had much forgiven; they preach of grace because they need much grace; and they lift up high the bronze serpent among
Babylonians when he announces their judgement from the Lord in Isaiah 47. In this passage we see what a large part of their evil culture depended on the ‘interpretation of the stars’ as ‘gods’. They called themselves ‘sorcerers’ and fully believed they were both right, wise and justified by their interpretations. However, as God reveals to them (and their king), they are highly mistaken!
roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
“Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers (astronomers), the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee.” (Isaiah 47:13-15)
The demons of hell are foolishly trying to measure heaven and earth to discredit God’s Word regarding his people, but to no avail! The seed of Israel will always be before the Lord, physical and spiritual. This is why man is so actively searching space as he cooperates with Satan’s desperate ploy. The continuing existence of Israel and the strength of the church globally testifies that God’s Word is true! Hallelujah!
God made night and day to teach us about dark and light, good and evil because we are dim. One brings life, one turns things off! When we are in the dark we sleep, normal existence switches off. We dream, visions may come, our mind tries to understand life on earth. God shows his gospel of hope by placing ‘lights’ in the sky as an assurance that he is still in control even in the darkness. By this we can sleep easy in the knowledge that, even though we are powerless to overcome Satan and darkness, the Lord allowed it so that we would look up to him! Now, through Christ, we can regain power over evil, by conversion when our eyes are opened and we receive the kingdom of heaven (obedience by His Spirit). He who has eyes let them see! Astronomers and occultists (astrologers) of Babylon are still with us today, being deceived and deceiving others, thinking they are wise. Babylonians invented their interpretation of the stars now called the zodiac with various constellations. Foolishly they map the stars and try to predict future events. These ideas have developed and changed over many millennia so that we now have 80 official constellations. The more they see of the universe the more there is to see and they just don’t get it! God’s thoughts are endless, he’s eternal. God laughs at their foolishness and, as we see from time to time, judges them. Today we have the ultimate degree of this religion called NASA and so called ‘space exploration’. They even seek to prove that their creator does not exist by looking for non-existent alien life! Foolishness beyond measure! Why do they do this? Well it’s Satan’s attempt to destroy God’s people: “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof
Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.” (Jer 31:35-37)
As disciples of Christ we must not fall into the astronomical confusionism that the world now loves. Jesus never said we should interpret the stars, let alone try and go to them, but he uses them in a parabolic and metaphorical form to confuse the Babylonian mindset. Paul reveals this in Romans 1:18-25 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” Think about what the so called constellations look like ‘man’, ‘birds’, ‘beasts’ and ‘creeping things’! Add to this mythological gods, these are idols of created things! Like a child’s join the dots picture in a colouring book the so called scientists think they know why stars are where they are. Poppycock! God’s Word never ever specified these interpretations. So where do they come from? These are the vain imaginations, to focus the lost on the erroneous interpretation of creation. Complete and utter occult Babylonian babel!
Of course Jesus knew mankind would fall for these lies and so ‘as a sign’ he put a consequence upon this false ‘star’ worship as Paul reveals! As the desire for science and space travel and the interpretation of stars increases, so does sexual perversion - this is very evident in our day. This is a form of judgement on the godless which, paradoxically, protects God’s faithful people, because believers are repelled by these sexual perversions. The faithful do not want homosexuality, paedophilia, abortion, child slavery etc. or their false teachings and blasphemy, so they turn to Christ in prayer and action. In time God justly brings judgement down on these perverted enemies. Unfortunately false ‘prophets’ are liable to ride on the populism that predicting the future can bring, these are the ‘prognosticators’ or ‘predictors’ of Babylon. It’s also a big money spinner and a snare that foolish people fall into because it sounds convincing, deception always does.
The correct interpretation of Scripture So we have seen how to wrongly view the stars, in a Babylonish way, but how then as Christians, should we view the cosmic events that happen? In Genesis Joseph’s dream provides a key insight in how to correctly interpret dreams and visions from heaven. Dreams, visions and prophecy make up important sections of Scripture and are deliberately coded in parabolic language, so that those who do not know God by the Spirit, get confused and his people alone see and understand (Isaiah 6). Joseph’s second dream is the ‘first mention’ of Sun, Moon and Stars together in a heavenly vision. This ‘first mention’ is a key that unlocks the truth for us: “And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?” (Genesis 37:9-10) Notice how the Sun and Moon symbolise authorities over the young Joseph, the firstborn of Rachel and Jacobs 7th son from his 2nd wife (Father and mother) and his brothers are seen as eleven ‘Stars’ (making him the 12th star). They all understood the parabolic imagery used in this way. They did not expect something to go weird with the real heavenly bodies in the sky, but knew this was symbolic, because it was given in a ‘night vision’ or dream state. Jacob himself had experienced this in his own life at Bethel
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when seeing a ladder to heaven (Gen 28). Of course there is no actual ladder in the sky. Although they immediately understood what these dreams implied they incorrectly interpreted Joseph’s motives in sharing the dream, and their pride was offended by the young ‘dreamer’, especially as Joseph was Jacob’s favourite, the rest is history. Joseph’s dreams and the understanding of other’s dreams proved to be vital throughout his life (Gen 40). God’s big plan in all of this was to save Jacob (Israel) from a future famine and to prosper them in Egypt (Gen 15:13-14; 45:5). The priority with God was the preservation of Israel and his seed to come. Therefore the correct understanding of the Sun, Moon and Stars is as parabolic ‘symbols’ that represent ‘authorities’ and as ‘first mention’ this understanding carries through into interpreting future visions and dreams in ALL Scriptures from Daniel to Revelation. So we see that the Sun, Moon and 12 Stars together in a ‘vision’ always symbolise the nation of Israel. Just as ‘clouds’ (symbol of heavenly power and glory) are always associated with the Lord ‘coming in judgement’.
The iniquity of idol worship God expressly warns the newly created nation of Israel not to switch to worshipping the heavenly things (angels etc.), or earthly creatures instead of him in any form: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exod 20:4) “And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” (Deut 4:19. See also 2 kings 23:5) Here God Almighty is clear that the lights in the sky have no special powers like ‘gods’. They do not belong to Israel, Egypt or Babylon, but are rather given to all nations to reveal the incredible mind of God and the passage of time. We see how Satan wants to distort this basic truth and manipulate it for his own purposes causing confusion. The last days of Israel as a priesthood began with Jesus being crucified, and the last days of the nations began at Pentecost when the Spirit came into men, first the Jew and then the Gentile (Acts 2 & 10). As we have seen it was already clearly understood that all creation is suffering from the corruption of sin and the Scripture tells us that it’s man’s
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foolishness that will finally ruin the beauty of the earth (Rom 8:19-22). Just as Israel ruined the promise land through massive mismanagement, so now man’s greed for resources is polluting and destroying the whole earth! Over the last 150 years more animals have become extinct than at any time in human history, the earths temperature has increased and weather gone wild, even the pagans know this to be true! (see www.WWF.org. uk). Paul was writing in the first century AD and they knew these things would come! They knew of ‘natural’ disasters then, they saw the power and force of storms, earthquakes and famines, it was not uncommon. Paul tells us that earth is in ‘the bondage of corruption’ and this was ordained by God himself in the hope that it would wake us humans up to the serious spiritual situation of sin and Satan’s deception. In the Revelation of Jesus we also read that many will be judged at the end for destroying the earth: “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.” (Rev 11:18) God made the earth good and put man in it to care for it, but man’s allegiance to Satan has resulted in its destruction through abuse, war and greed. The earth, and now even the heavens, are shaking as a consequence - we are reaping what we have sown!
Rightly dividing the Word The best way to understand prophecy interpretation is to look at Bible prophecy that we know has already been historically fulfilled, according to Scripture itself, and see how the symbolistic language was completed (as with Joseph). The Bible therefore interprets itself - simple! For example there are many types of the ‘coming of the Lord’ in the old testament which clearly do not refer to Jesus second coming, but rather a coming of the Lord’s judgement, in that particular era, in time against a specific nation(s). The unseen Holy God of heaven works unseen in the whole earth through an agent or vessel, like Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army, using them to do his disciplinary work, in order to save his people. This was the fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecies and at this time when God calls Nebuchadnezzar his ‘servant’! (Jer 25:9). We also see that God’s judgement expressed against Egypt (more than once) was expressed as him ‘coming on clouds’: “The burden of Egypt. Behold, the Lord
rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.” (Isaiah 19:1) This prophecy was fulfilled when the Assyrians attacked in 670 BC, an historical fact. It is incorrect to use this Scripture as meaning anything in our day concerning Egypt. It has become an example to us of God speaking and then doing what he said (2 Pet 2:6; 1 Corin 10:11). However, no one in Egypt saw God in person on actual clouds, but we see how he used the Assyrian army to judge them as he had Israel before them. This event of ‘war’ is described as the ‘Lord riding upon a swift cloud’ (a cloud of Assyrians perhaps?). All the ancients knew that when God came in this way people are judged, nations destroyed, just like when natural floods come and disaster strikes, it’s a metaphorical and universally understood code! Prophecy vision is to be interpreted into real world events and NOT taken literally, they reveal the workings of heaven behind the scenes upon history. The same is true today as it was then, except we have lost the understanding of interpreting these symbols! Even king Nebuchadnezzar came to this understanding and expressed it in his amazing letter to us all: “And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” (D an 4. See
also
2 Kings 6:17)
Another excellent old testament example of this is seen in the books of Micah and Nahum who’s prophecies regarding Samaria, Jerusalem and Nineveh were all completed, being recorded later in Scripture and in historical archeology. The prophets use very dramatic language to announce the power of the Almighty, his qualifications if you like, to be the judge against their sin and iniquity: “The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Hear, all ye people; hearken, O land, and all that therein is: and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.
ministry was John Newton, but he was once a blasphemer and injurious! Turn farther back, to John Bunyan, on the village green, with his tip-cat on the Sunday, with all a drunkard’s vices and sins, and foul-mouthed in his profanity—yet John Bunyan becomes an eminent proclaimer of the gospel, and the author of a matchless allegory which has served to guide many a pilgrim to heaven! Turn farther back, to Luther, most earnest as a Romanist for all the letter of the law, diligent in every ceremony, superstitious to a high degree, yet afterwards the bold proclaimer of the gospel of the grace of God! Turn to Augustine, in youth of corrupt and vicious propensities, according to his own confession, to the grief of his mother Monica, yet called by sovereign grace to be one of the fathers of the church, and a notable exponent of sound doctrine! Look yet farther back to the apostle Paul breathing out threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord; like a huge wild beast, making havoc of the church, but suddenly struck down, and almost as suddenly raised up a new man, and ordained (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father) to be a chosen vessel unto Christ, to bear His name unto the Gentiles! “I will also take of them,” the most unlikely and unfit, according to human judgment. “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites unto Me.” And where the service has not taken the form of preaching, we can remember some whom God has made eminent in prayer; never account prayer second to preaching; no doubt prayer in the Christian church is as precious as the utterance of the gospel. To speak to God for men is a part of the Christian priesthood that should never be despised. Surely I have heard some prayers of those whom none would ever have expected to pray, such as I have not heard from those who from their youth up, have been accustomed to the language of devotion, moved with energy, and full of fervor, like Elijah. Or, shall I say it, they have become in spiritual force nerved as Samson was with physical strength; in their prayers they have seemed to take hold of the pillars of the temple of Satan, and pull them down upon their enemies; they have been so mighty as to wrestle with God and prevail! God has taken of them, that is even of the prayerless, and the careless, and the blaspheming—and He has made these to be priests and Levites unto Him. And in all other holy service I think I can remember eminent men who out of weakness were made strong; from simpletons they were changed into sages; or rescued from the dregs of infamy they became paragons of virtue. In their unregenerate state as bitter fruit, apples of Sodom that crumbled into dust, and turned to ashes, yet so transformed by the renewing of their minds that they bore the richest clusters of choicest fruit to the praise and glory of the Great Husbandman! “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites,
says the Lord.” There is the fact; you need not that I enlarge upon it; while a false priesthood still lives (and always will), God has His elect people who are His royal priesthood among the sons of men; they are discharging regal functions, and sacred offices among the sons of men in His name, and before His face; and these He oftentimes takes out from the least likely of mankind. II. And now, secondly, as to THE REASON OF THE FACT. Does He not do this to display His mercy—His great and infinite mercy? That those who have provoked Him to wrath should become the men in whom He should show forth His lovingkindness—men to be pardoned, men to be washed, to be sanctified—and then men to be put in trust of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Does not this reveal and illustrate the high prerogative of sovereign grace? “Unto me,” says the apostle, “who is less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” It is a great grace to be permitted to preach the gospel; I have sometimes said to you that when the prodigal came back to his father and was received into his father’s house, no earthly parent though he had quite forgiven him all the wildness of his son’s adventure, could wholly forget the waywardness of his disposition; he might condone the past without confiding in him for the future. If it were necessary to send one of the sons to market with a bag of money, the good old father would, in all probability, say to himself, “I will send the elder son with it; he is better to be trusted. I would hardly like to put such a responsibility upon the young lad who has so lately been reclaimed.” I can fancy, without uttering a word to his younger son, he would, discreetly (as you would say), trust the other with any weighty concerns. But our heavenly Father—oh, how He forgives us! He leaves no back reckonings, even though we used to be such sinners, some of us, and so injurious; after He forgave us, He committed to our charge not merely silver and gold, the perishable resources of time, but the priceless treasure of the gospel of Jesus Christ! He allowed us to go and tell others, “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” See you not the impure giving lessons on chastity, the intemperate teaching chastity? And mark you not how he who persecuted the disciples in times past, now preaches the faith he once destroyed? Oh, what deep mercy there is in Jesus! What wonderful grace there is in giving His commissions, that those who cursed Him, themSermon selves, should intercede with Him for others; that those who despised Him should be permitted to honor Him; that those who broke His Sabbaths, should nevertheless, be helpful to His people in hallowing the Lord’s Day; that those who despised His word, and put it behind their backs, should be the men to open it, and display the sweetness of it to their fellow men! Is REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 5
whom He will bring very near to Himself, and make use of for His own sacred purposes. The great point is this—it seems to be mentioned here as a matter of surprise that God should take any of them; of the persons here mentioned; of the sinful, backsliding, transgressing Jews, or of the blind, dark, heathen Gentiles; that He should take them, and make them to be priests and Levites before Him! Now that is parallel to the fact that God does take some of the most unlikely persons who seem to be the most unsuitable of all, and make these to be His faithful and honoured servants among the sons of men. Now, I shall first notice that fact; then, the reason for it; and then, the lessons from it. I. First, I notice that God does, to the astonishment of men, TAKE SOME WHOM HE MAKES PRIESTS AND LEVITES TO HIMSELF. This is a fact. Now, there are priests and Levites who God never took; there have been such in all ages; there were those in the days of Aaron who said—“You take too much upon you, you sons of Levi,” and when they stood before the Lord with their censers, “The earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up.” There were those in the days of Elijah. When he stood by the altar of the Lord, the priests of Baal, in great numbers, stood by their altar, offering prayer to Baal. You know how God had no regard to their sacrifice; they were the church established by law; but, for all that, Elijah the Nonconformist put them to the rout, and maintained the worship of the invisible God of Israel firm and faithful to the end! So in our Savior’s days there were priests and Levites—men taught and instructed in the law of God and these were the very men who conspired together against Him. They took counsel how they might put Him to death; they stirred up the people to say, “Not this man, but Barabbas.” And on down to this present day there are those legitimate priests and Levites, at least, those who call themselves so, whom God has never taken, upon whom He has never laid His hand, upon whom His Holy Spirit has never descended! They speak, but He speaks not by them; they administer ordinances, but He gives not divine grace to the ordinances by their hands; and such there always will be, doubtless, till Christ comes— but they are not spoken of in the text! The text says, “I will take,” and it is only those whom God Himself takes and chooses among men who are the real priests and Levites who serve Him! Observe, according to the text, men have nothing to do with the selection, for here it is said, “I will also take of them.” Not, “their parents shall bring them up to it”; not, “Those who shall be looked out as the most fit and proper men on account of some natural bent and bias, or gift and talent,” but, “I will take.” God’s priesthood in the world is a priesthood of His own choosing, of His own setting apart, of His own anointing! “He has made us kings and priests unto God.” The church is a royal priesthood, not of man, PAGE 4 REVIVAL TIMES
neither by man, nor of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth—it is all of God’s choosing! This sacred and consecrated band of priests and Levites, and all who serve God effectually and acceptably, are men whom He has Himself chosen to the work; He Himself has done it, and only His own will has been consulted in the matter. In their case, it appears from the text, that whatever was unfit in their character has been overcome by divine grace. “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.” If God takes them for Levites, He makes them Levites; if He chooses them for priests, He makes them priests. So, glory be to His name, when He chose you to be His priests and His Levites, my dear brother; when He chose you, my dear sister, to be His servants, He gave you the grace you needed to serve Him! He found in you no natural fitness, no suitability, but fitness for sin, a suitability to go astray, and to become a brand for the burning, and if there is a fitness in you to serve Him on earth and in heaven, it is His grace that has done it! It is His grace speaking in all its wondrous majesty—“I will take of them for priests and for Levites”—which has effected in you the great transformation, making in you all things new, and thus qualifying you to become the servants of the Most High. In some persons this natural inaptitude and unfitness for the Lord’s work has been more apparent than in others. They have been men of rough exterior, unhallowed life; their education neglected their passions wild and lawless, their tastes low and grovelling; yet, for all that God has taken from among such men some who in a special manner, even beyond the rest of God’s servants, have become as priests and Levites unto Him! He has sometimes selected women, in whom there seemed to be no suitability for His grace, to make them matrons in the church; and men, who seemed to be ringleaders in the service of Satan, to make them very captains of the Lord’s hosts! They had no inbred faculty, no natural genius that qualified them to become the instruments of righteousness— as I have said before, it was the reverse of this; their career was not foreshadowed by any instinct with which they were born; nor was it aided by any training they received in childhood. The God who chose them gave the grace they required at their second birth, and subdued all the evil that was in them by the rich discipline of His spiritual operations in order to qualify them for efficient service. I thank God, I remember in my soul some dear brothers who have been made eminent ministers of the gospel, of whom, if anyone had said they would ever have preached the gospel, none would have believed it! Not to mention the living, the men of today, let’s go back to the early days of John Newton, an earnest preacher, a famous evangelist, not to add, a sweet poet. Almost a model for the
And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?” (Micah 1:1-5) The destruction of Samaria and Judah years after that announcement is now recorded history, it’s all done and dusted many thousands of years ago. What happened? Foreign armies of Assyria attacked Samaria and years later Babylon came and destroyed Judah, the people and the land was wasted and the first Temple ransacked and burned. However, no-one saw the Lord ‘visibly appear’ and come down melting mountains etc. all this was metaphorical speech, referring back to the terror of Mount Sinai, to reveal what was happening in the spiritual dimension, and the seriousness of their rebellion. The mountains and valleys referred to the authorities (leaders) causing the rebellion, the ‘demonic’ and the earthly ‘kings’. On earth this was manifest through their destruction by armies with swords. His purpose for doing this is stated thus: “And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot.” (Mic 1:7) God removed the idols which were ruining Israel and his plan for their destiny. Many would die, but those faithful lived on! Their is always a small remnant that are faithful whom God protects. This is a key as to why God brings judgements, it’s for the sake of his people and his plan. It all looks terrible, but Micah holds out the hope of restoration through the eventual return to the land and ultimately the coming Messiah - Jesus. Notice in this his prophecy how it mentions a woman in labour and sheaves of wheat like in Joseph’s dream! “Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies. Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion. But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel: for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor.” (Micah 4:10-12; 5:2) There wasn’t an actual woman who gave birth, but it’s symbolic of the pain of expulsion (the purpose of birth), consistent with all prophetic utterances
to date. Just to highlight the point the Father decides that his very Word, the Messiah will be born of a woman, in pain and blood (Micah 5:3). This Messiah would be his ultimate grace and mercy to his people Israel and the final remnant of Israel would be saved. How awesome is our God!
What about Jesus as prophet? How did the Jews interpret Jesus words and prophecies in their own day? Firstly, consider the prophecy for the appearing of John the baptist and Jesus the Messiah which was clearly fulfilled by them: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” (I saiah 40:1-15)
Notice in the opening verse that the Israelites paid for their apostasy through ‘warfare’! (judgement). Isaiah announces that, at the time of John and Jesus
appearing, their sins would have been paid according to the covenant. (This was approx 400 years from the end of Nehemiah and Malachi’s governorship. During this time they were conquered and ruled over by 4 warring empires culminating in the Romans around 60 BC the very last and the greatest judgement in AD 70 which lasted until 1948). Jesus came to rescue the faithful remnant who would believe in him and be saved from that judgement (day of the Lord). The Spirit speaks of John the baptist raising valleys and lowering mountains, crooked paths straightened and rough places plain. Nothing like this happened to the natural terrain (the mountains are still the same), but all this was metaphorically representing the change in the hearts of men and the destruction of false (demonic) leadership (mountains). Again notice what is stated as the qualification of God to do this in verse 12: “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?”! Jesus did come with a strong hand driving out the money changers and he did shepherd his lambs. Did not the Pharisees wonder where Jesus got such authority and learning? Behold your God! This whole passage uses metaphorical language and we know how it came true, because John, Jesus and the apostles said it did! (see Luke 3:4-6; 7:26-27. Matt 1:22-23; 4:14-16; 12:16-21; 21:23-27).
Also look at Malachi’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem to take place after Jesus and John have done their work: “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Jesus declared that John the baptist was the Elijah to come, the last naturally born prophet and according to Jesus
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the greatest (Matt 11:12-15). The ‘dreadful day of the Lord’ was indeed the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, an historical fact (See also Luke 21:22-28). The Sun of righteousness was Jesus himself and he did have healing in his wings! (The Sun symbol of Jacob, the father of Israel and his SEED Jesus the head, the King of Israel).
Prophecies given by Jesus Jesus came as God’s saviour for the remnant who would be saved from the final judgement of warfare upon Israel (Matt 13:11). History was about to enter the final phase of which Daniel had spoke, the final 2 kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the iron and the iron & clay mixed. (Dan 2). Notice that Nebuchadnezzar calls first for his astrologers and sorcerers to try and understand the vision, they can’t. Daniel gives the correct interpretation from God and favour comes upon him and the Jews. After this 70 year exile their national sins were fully paid. Then, as God always had done before, they returned to the land and grew again as a sign to the world of God’s faithfulness. Jesus came and prophesied one last and terrible judgement upon the apostate Israel Jacob’s trouble, the greatest tribulation that Jerusalem would ever experience.
The days of vengeance “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” (Matt 23:35; Luke 11:51) Jesus tells the leaders of Israel, and those who rejected him, that the judgement of all judgements was coming upon them and that it even stretched back to Abel! What! Yes this is the close of the age of Israel and the beginning of the new age of grace through the church (remnant Jews). “For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:22-24). As well as directly telling the Jewish leaders what would happen when they were judged for rejecting him, Jesus used the ancient symbolic language
of judgement which they had come to recognise. They all knew the judgement language, they understood it was not referring to the actual elements, but like a vision, dream or parable it was referring to something spiritual, the unseen powers of heaven, the armies of God! He continues to prophesy the end of the gentile nations - and the very end of time itself - all in relation to Israel. “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:25-28)
So Jesus tells his enquiring disciples and all of us that Israel is judged first by a great army (the Romans) and that the whole gentile world will also be judged by a coming army - the angels of heaven and we will see him coming for real through space and time - his second appearing! The great and dreadful day of the Lord (Rev 1:7). Remember how earlier we understood that when Sun, Moon and Stars are mentioned together it symbolises ISRAEL and his sons. There shall be signs in ISRAEL! Is this not our day since 1948! To clarify his prophecy Jesus continues by giving a parable about Israel as a ‘fig tree’ and the other nations as ‘trees’ shooting forth (growing and expanding): “And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree (Israel), and all the trees (Gentiles); When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:29-32) A generation is 40 years. Jesus spoke these prophecies in approx AD 30 by AD 73 Jerusalem and Israel as a nation were destroyed, but not the nations. The Christians fled Jerusalem in the summer of AD 69 when the Romans surrounded it, but the apostate radical Jews had stayed to fight - all the rebels died bar a few survivors who went to Rome and exile. These prophecies concerning Israel were fulfilled within the generation that heard his voice. If it was not so then Jesus was lying - and he doesn’t lie! The Jewish historian Josephus recorded all of it. The Israelites were scattered into the nations to mercifully preserve some of them, not to destroy them. How these nations have treated them has shaped modern
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history. Israel did come back into their land when the punishment was ended and the earth helped them. The Balfour declaration in 1917 opened the way for the eventual establishment of Israel in part of their land in 1948 - the fulfilment of the promise of God to the Patriarchs. This is unique in history, no other ancient nation or tribe has ever been restored in such a fashion. It’s a sign to the world, the fig tree has grown back! We also see that since this happened just about every nation has grown and grown in size. It was the Jesuits under the Papacy in the 18th and 19th centuries who have tried to futurize these Scriptures about Jerusalem to mean that something else in today’s Jerusalem is yet to come. Jacob’s trouble has already happened and they have been restored back to the land and will never leave it again despite what the Islamic fundamentalists or even the United Nations declare! Our duty is to love Israel and help them not attack them again. Those who do will be judged for this. The truth is that everything God does is for the sake of his people, the seed of Abraham natural and spiritual. Kingdoms will come and go, natural disasters will come and go, earthquakes will come and go. Storms also will come and go until the very end, but as Jesus said when he comes back in person, at his second ‘appearing’ everyone will know for sure, because the light of his glory will blot out both the natural Sun, the Moon and all the Stars combined like lightning lighting up the sky. This is when he will judge the nations! “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev 1:7-8)
A nation born in a day “For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ ” (Acts 2:15-21) Peter says The Spirit coming into men
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selected, and particularly appointed to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation. And of this tribe of Levi, chief among them was the house of Aaron to minister in the sanctuary as priests. So now, glory be to God, He takes out of all nations a people that are to be peculiarly His own; His own by election, as He chose them; His own by redemption, as He bought them; His own by endowment through the regenerating and sanctifying operations of the Holy Spirit. “They shall be Mine says the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels.” His own, therefore, before time, and after time shall close; “I will take of them for priests and for Levites, says the Lord”; being thus set apart as the Lord’s property, the priests and Levites lived only for divine service. While others were engaged with their trade or upon their farm, the Levites were attending to the tabernacle or temple, and the priests in their courts were slaughtering bullocks and lambs, and offering them to God; or they had other duties of a kindred order, by reason of the charge given them of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel. Anyway, it was in sacred things that they were occupied. So now it is the duty of every man to serve the Lord, but, alas, man will not! And therefore God takes unto Himself a people out of all nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and He ordains them to stand before Him continually, to wait on His commands, and to do His bidding; thus He puts upon their shoulders His easy yoke, and weights them with His light burden, and they become His willing servants—that their life may be for His glory, and that their desire, as well as their duty, may be to serve Him with heart and strength as long as they have any being. In this sense, then, happy is the man who is set apart to the divine service, a priest and a Levite unto God. Further than this, the priests and the Levites enjoyed the privilege of drawing near to God— nearer than the rest of the people in that typical dispensation. While the people stood outside, the Levites were busy inside; one of them, the chief of the tribe, and the High Priest before the Lord for all the tribes, was permitted and commanded to go into the most holy place within the veil. And you know that the holy places made with hands are figures of the true, even of heaven itself; in like manner there are people to be found on earth at this day whom God has chosen to draw near unto Him. In Christ Jesus they who sometimes were afar off are made near by the blood of Christ; the same precious blood that is applied to their conscience is sprinkled on the mercy seat, and therefore they have access to the Father. Oh, happy are they, who, like the priests and Levites, love dwelling in the Lord’s house, and praising Him, who can say— “Here, Lord, I find settled rest While others go and come. No more a stranger or a guest,
But like a child at home.” Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations; we are a people near unto You; made nearby affinity with the Son of God; we are brought near by the blood, led near by the Spirit of God, kept near, and rejoicing to be near, for here is our honor and comfort, to be near unto God. We are made priests and Levites because we are claimed as God’s portion, prepared for God’s service, and admitted to a near familiarity with Him. There are some such to be found in this place today, whom God has taken from among the Gentiles to be priests and Levites unto Him. Now priests and Levites had two works to do: something to do towards God for men, and something to do towards men for God. They were engaged to do something towards God for men, and so they offered the sacrifices that were brought to the door of the tabernacle, whether according to the general ordinances, or to any special vows. Spiritually minded, they were much engaged in intercession for the rest of Israel, and so there is a people to be found this day who offer unto God acceptable prayer and praise, and in answer to their prayer, unnumbered blessings come down upon the sons of men. I trust there are some here who have power with God in prayer; you are the king’s remembrancers; you make mention of His name and keep not silent; you cry to God for Sodom, and yet more hopefully you cry to God for Jerusalem; your prayer ceases not, and God’s grace and favor always follow it. In this sense God is constantly taking out, even from among the vilest of the vile, a people whom He makes to be priests and Levites for men towards Himself. Another part of their office consisted in speaking for God to the people—“For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge.” As for the Levites, they were as ushers in the schools, and tutors in the families of Israel. Among the Levites were found those scribes who became the instructors of the people, the copyists of the law, and the expounders of its statutes and ordinances; they were ministers who opened up to the people, as Ezra did, the knotty points of the old covenant, and expounded the word of God; so not all of us in the same degree, but all of us in a measure, are to be teachers of God’s revealed truth, even as He has taught us. And He has, in this place, and throughout the world, taken out a certain company whom He has made to speak as His mouth to the sons of men—men of His own choosing, and His own sending who are as priests and Levites for His name. They claim no priestly office as though they could absolve the sinner; they leave that with Christ, the first-born of His Father’s house, and the chief Rabbi of the entire Lord’s chosen seed—but as teachers and instructors. They are in the midst of the world the priests and Levites of God. I have thus shown what the promise means; God will take out of the Jews and Gentiles a people REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 3
OMEGA-MINISTRIES.ORG
ISSUE: 01
Revival – God’s Way Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:19
Revival times is a FREE publication offered to those who want to be encouraged and built up to know JESUS CHRIST as their Lord God and saviour. It is published by Omega Ministries which is a non-denominational prophetic movement of believers who want to see the Kingdom come on earth as in heaven. Please send all enquiries or questions to the email address given below. We recognise all material copyrights and thank God that all contributors take no wages for their work of faith in order to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world and to revive his true church in our day. All Scriptures are quoted from the King James Bible and or Greek and Hebrew, where appropriate, for clarity. This paper and other teaching material is offered online for downloading and printing free of charge. If you are inspired by the content of this paper please pass on to brothers and sisters for their encouragement. Revival is a long lost concept in our modern society because the true Gospel has been perverted, watered down and twisted for personal gain by wolves in sheeps clothing. Enough is enough and now the sleepers must awake from their spiritual stupor. The dead dry bones must live and the faithful army of the Lord arise and shine the beauty of Christ in us, the hope of glory.
The Call Has Gone Out Soldiers of Christ, arise And put your armour on, Strong in the strength which God supplies Thru His eternal Son; Strong in Lord of hosts And in His mighty power: Who in the strength of Jesus trusts Is more than conqueror
Where is the hope for Revival— God’s Holy Spirit outpoured Convicting of sin, and of judgement And righteousness of the Lord? When nothing else is important— Only God’s presence Divine, When Christians quit worldly pleasures, Then God, His ear will incline. Desperate prayer for Revival Will cleanse the Church by the Word. Then clothed in spotless, white linen, The Bride clears the way for her Lord. Prayer is the key to Revival, Prayer that is true Spirit-born, Nights of compassionate weeping— Intercession for all the forlorn.
The lost ones will yield to God’s Spirit When Christians, cleansed, weep and pray; God’s Living Water flows outward; This is “Revival—God’s Way”! —Estelle Gifford Jackson
Editor: Stephen Turnham © please copy and pass on Download the PDF here: www.omega-ministries.org email: info@omega-ministries.org
Apostle Paul
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The E pistle
to the
Romans
chapter
Considering what we now know let’s look afresh look at the passage in Revelation 12. I will comment each verse in red. First note that this is a ‘vision’ and not an astronomical observation. 1 “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. (Israel brought forth a child and that child was the seed - Jesus! As we have seen the history of Israel was painful for many centuries in order for Messiah to come. Satan rose against this plan to hinder it! But Mary was with child and gave birth to a supernatural son - the saviour according to the Father’s plan!)
Then will the burdens be lifted, Then all the sinners will cry, Then all the chains will be loosened And worldly passions will die.
in
The tale of two women
(This is a woman, but which woman? According to symbolic language this is faithful Israel because it is a crown)
FIRST THOUGHTS That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us . For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
They will soar on wings like eagles; T hey will run and not grow weary, They will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:28-31
and women fulfilled this prophecy, this was the ‘notable day of the Lord’. But no record is known of any cosmological changes at Pentecost!? Again this language is purely symbolic and the Jews present knew this - so must we. Blood moons show that God is all powerful and has set the universe in place. He refers to this whenever significant prophecies are given, so that we are clear who is speaking it, our creator! Peter later tells us that the new nation born at Pentecost is in fact the church or body of Christ! A new nation, not another Israel, but an heavenly Jerusalem for both Jew and Gentile to be as one with God (1 Pet 2:9).
8
3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. (This is Satan and his kingdom of fallen angels in heaven, they knew God’s plan and opposed it. 4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. (Satan was there in Herod Antipas waiting to murder Jesus, but failed because they fled to Egypt to survive because of Angelic intervention. Just as Jacob had done centuries before his son survived!) 5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. (This is a one sentence summary of Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension! He will rule the whole earth one day on his return, every knee will bow)
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. (So they fled to Egypt and hid until Herod dies. 1260 days (by the end Jesus was 3.5 years old. At which point the kings of the east find him by an angel (star) having guided them Matt 2:8-11) 7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, 8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. (This is the great battle to finally cleanse heaven of Satan who retained access all this time (see Job 1) contrary to former belief this had not happened before. He came to God to accuse the saints of sin and his rights to punish them (v10 below) 9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (Through the cross, resurrection and ascension this great battle was fought in the heavens and Jesus declares this in John 12:31 and 16:11. His blood was presented in heaven itself to cleanse all Heb 9:12 from sin) 10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. (The salvation that Jesus brings removes the condemnation of the devil and sin giving the believer victory over him! Satan can no longer approach God to accuse us Rom 8:34, but now attacks us directly through persecution) 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. (This is the true church history for 2000 years! More than 60 million have given their lives) 12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them (Luke 15:10). Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. (The angels rejoice over every soul saved, but the world will experience Satan’s wrath as he sets his efforts against all creation to destroy it! Check the news!) 13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. (Satan’s anger stirs him towards persecution of Israel and the church. They
fled from nation to nation looking for peace) 14 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. (Israel was dispersed into the nations (wilderness) as was the faithful church via persecution by the Papacy (anti Christ) for 1260 years - an historical fact!) 15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. (This is a flood of violence and false teaching the doctrine of devils to entrap God’s people into perdition and to persecute the true church) 16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. (Many key nations of the earth eventually came to accept the Gospel and came to Israel’s aid and the world suffered through many world wars as demons battled for their territories in the earth. Israel’s punishment and longest exile eventually ended in 1948 after 2 world wars and 6 million Jews and others murdered) 17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (At the same time that Satan opposed the true Jewish remnant he attacked the faithful believers and we see this across the world through time and especially today) So we see that Revelation 12 is actually a summary chapter regarding the history of Israel, Jesus and the church until the end comes. It has absolutely nothing to do with astronomy or Zodiac signs to predict the future! It reveals to us that we are indeed near then end of the age and that we must learn to understand the signs correctly. The fig tree is growing and the nations of the world are growing, each one like a Babylon with towers and sky worship! Multi-faiths and multi-idols abound in every city of the world while Christian faith is under constant attack! However, despite all this take heart, in Jesus words of encouragement to us who follow him with our very lives:
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) n
REVIVAL TIMES PAGE 23
Useful Resources
OMEGA-MINISTRIES.ORG
In this section are a number of websites and books which can help inspire you to to seek the Lord in effective praying and in getting out there doing as well. As always, JESUS CHRIST is our greatest example and the one to whom we must compare ourselves and obey. The greatest resource is the Bible itself, so please spend your main study time in the Word of God, preferably the King James Version! These days even a short search on YouTube for revival preaching provides a great deal - but always test against Scripture, because we see through a glass darkly. Websites: www.omega-ministries.org www.biblegateway.com www.biblehub.com www.spurgeongems.org www.heartcrymissionary.com www.propheticvision.org.uk www.eurovisiontv.org www.thelastreformation.com
Free material to download, Booklets and tracts. Online Bible versions for comparison Online Bible versions and Greek / Hebrew Lexicon and Interlinear Powerful messages from one of the great preachers of the 19th Century Equipping and mobilizing indigenous churches and missionaries David Hathaway evangelistic website - recommended! Revival preaching broadcasts to the world- David Hathaway Join the network of believers who want to see power evangelism
Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:19
JESUS CHRIST
Priests & levites By Charles Haddon Spurgeon (c1870) Sermon No 992
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Tim 2:15 This no-compromise, biblical clarion call to revival is timeless. He clearly shows how the church can be brought from where it is to where it ought to be. The church still needs his message, first published in 1983. “We live in a generation which has never known revival— God’s way!”
Available from: Bethany House
TRACTS to aid outreach
For the God sent no save world; d. (Jo but tht his So H hn 3: at th n inOF FAIT Jesu 17) e wSor to the inhe s is that E TEST ld th world roug inhe ritance WAYTH to
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ISSUE: 03
“And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.” Isaiah 66:21
A NEW ORDER OF PRIESTS AND LEVITES
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HIS chapter is surrounded with critical difficulties, and yet it is full of spiritual instruction. The verse before us is by some referred to Gentiles, and supposed to mean that the Lord promises that He will take out of the heathen nations a people whom He will make into priests and Levites. Others would say it points to the Jews, rejected for their unbelief and dispersed in judgment among all nations. When their own Messiah came, it was not with a devout faith, but with a profane imprecation, they said, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” The curse they invoked did come upon them. The retribution they challenged has been meted out to them in full measure. To the letter it was verified. Have you ever read
how, when Titus was besieging Jerusalem, 500 Jews were sometimes crucified in a day? Do you not remember that Josephus, speaking as an eyewitness, said, “There lacked room for crosses, and crosses for bodies”? To this day their children are scattered in all lands, and have found no rest for the soles of their feet. But they are to be restored; they are to be brought back to their own land and to worship God on His holy mountain; and in the latter days, when they are restored, then will God take of them for priests and Levites. To me it appears of very small consequence to which this verse refers, for in Christ Jesus there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision; and this promise seems to me to stand good to the whole human race considered in its fallen state. “I will take of them for priests and
for Levites, says the Lord.” Under the gospel dispensation God will select both out of Jews and Gentiles a chosen people, who shall stand before Him spiritually as the priests and the Levites stood before Him typically. Think for a minute of the compass of this great promise. Evidently a high honour is here conferred; the context leads us to see that not only a great promise, but likewise a great privilege is implied. What is this privilege? It is that we shall be priests and Levites. Now the priests or Levites were persons set apart to be God’s peculiar property; when the firstborn were spared in Egypt, God claimed the firstborn to be His own, and He took the tribe of Levi to represent the first-born. They were to be the Lord’s; though all Israel belonged to God, yet the tribe of Levi was especially
continued on page 3
INSIDE Priests & Levites • A Message for our times Part 2 • Signs in the Sky • Beyond Radical - Issues we dare no face & more...
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