THE POWERS OF TEH AGE TO COME

POWERS OF THE AGE TO COME

                “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And He will delight in the fear of the Lord and He will not judge by what His eyes see, nor make a decision by what His ears hear; but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; and He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.  Also righteousness will be the belt about His loin, and faithfulness the belt of His waist.” Isa. 11:1-5

                It is said that the anointing that will fall upon God’s final remnant generation will be seven times greater than the anointing of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

                Paul said in 2 Cor. 1:21, 22: “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.”  (Earnest or down payment)

                In Ephesians 1:13, 14 Paul carried on this idea of the Holy Spirit saying: “In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation- having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy.

                So, let us look at it this way. The Pentecostal anointing was poured out upon us to bear the fruit of Jesus in our lives and the baptism of the Holy Spirit was given to us for power to witness and to do the works of Christ in the world. But it was a limited anointing poured out upon imperfect people to prepare them to receive the greater anointing of Tabernacles that will come at the end of the age.

                This is why we who aspire to be among God’s final generation remnant seed need to push on beyond mere Christianity and church attendance to become sons and daughters of God who perfectly reflect the character of Jesus. In Psalms 102:13-22 the Psalmist talks about a generation who will see the Lord appear in His glory and then says: “This will be written for the generation to come; that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.”

                And Paul picks up this theme in Romans 8: 19 saying: “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, kin hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

                Not everything I say is easy to take for those who are satisfied to just make it to church. We are that final generation that was yet to be created and we are the ones who must now push on in the Holy Spirit to become the sons of God for whom all creation is longing. The baton has been handed to us to finish the final lap of the race and this time we must win. All of the saints who came before us   (the cloud of witnesses Heb. 12:1) is cheering us on to the finish line, because without us they cannot be made perfect. Hebrews 11:40

                So to finish this race and to put the final cap on the great plan of salvation God is going to pour out a greater anointing. He is going to pour out upon us a harvest anointing, called the seven spirits of God. This is the anointing that Jesus operated under, for it is said of Him in John 3:34, 35: “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.”

                Now if we look at this anointing, we see that it is exactly the anointing that Jesus ministered under. It is identified as the seven spirits of the Lord, which Isaiah 11 said would rest upon Jesus. They are:

1.       The spirit of the Lord 2. The Spirit of Wisdom 3. The Spirit of Understanding 4. The Spirit of Counsel   5.The Spirit of Might 6. The Spirit of Knowledge and 7. The Spirit of the Fear of the Lord.

                At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus stood up in His hometown Synagogue and read from the scroll Isaiah 61 saying: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” and then He lived out His life demonstrating the seven Spirits of the Lord. Yet some of them He did not manifest even though He could have, for in same cases during His first earthly sojourn His time had not yet come to exercise those powers that He will indeed exercise during the final judgment of the wicked.

                Likewise, when Jesus stood up in His home town, He stopped in the middle of the quote in Isaiah and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your ears.” And everyone sat staring at Him because He left out the last part of the verse which says: “And the day of vengeance of our God.” that part of the text will not be fulfilled until He comes to judge the world.

                I have often asked the Lord how we are to do His works in the world if we do not have His power. I mean, it is one thing to hand out tracts telling people about Jesus and it is quite another thing to be able to demonstrate the miracles Jesus did that drew the crowds.

                When my Dad was dying of cancer, we took him to a certain healing meeting in Portland Oregon. It was a huge arena and there must have been 200 wheel chairs across the front rows of the audience. They all came in their wheel chairs and they all left in their wheel chairs and except for a few people who claimed to have had partial hearing restored, I began to wonder what all of the hoopla was about. I left there realizing that it was all emotions and smoke and mirrors and I thought “this isn’t it.”

                But there was born in me that day as I wheeled my Dad out of the meeting.  There has to be a real thing for Jesus said that the works He did and even greater works will we do because He has gone back to the Father.

                The truth is the church has fallen away so far from the first love of the early church that we only see a fraction, if any, of the power that graced the disciples after Pentecost. We need to start crying out to God for the Spirit of the Lord that Jesus walked in. We need to cry out for that first love that purified their souls so that they could rightly use God’s power. Today it is largely used, or even faked to make money and to gather big crowds, but I say with tears that this is not the anointing that Jesus longs to pour out upon His remnant sons and daughters.

                When it does come, it is not going to be done in huge arenas by TV stars. It is going to be done by the nobodies the humble, the people who have poured out their lives with weeping and tears to the only God and Savior who can both prepare us and empower us for the final harvest.

                Right now it is not what we do in public that counts, but what we do in our prayer closet where we lay ourselves bare before the Lord… where we confess to Him that without Him we can do nothing and that Christ in us is our only hope of glory.

                Some things have to be done in us before we can rightly handle that which God wants to pour out upon us. Jesus came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. We have liked the Holy Spirit, but not the fire so much. In fact we have avoided the fire, by promising happiness and prosperity, rather than suffering and a Refiner’s fire. We teach people to be ready to escape; but we don’t teach them to be ready for the great shaking that will shake out everything that has not been birthed by the Holy Spirit in us. We have been doing it our way just like Frank Sinatra. We have garnered the glory to ourselves and used what little power we had to buy Jet airplanes and mansions and lavish lifestyles.

                But if we want to do what Jesus did, then we must also be what He was. Much of what we DO and what we ARE grieves the Holy Spirit. We are not always a safe place for Him to land. We are fifty/ fifty; with equal shares of the world and the church and even at that we are not fully committed. We reserve ourselves for ourselves.

                Now the seven Spirits of the Lord are awesome beyond our wildest imaginations. For instance, it was the Spirit of might that came upon David’s mighty men. He came upon Shammah who stood in the midst of a field of lentils and took on the entire Philistine army single handedly. The Spirit of might came upon Samson who killed 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey.

                Solomon received the Spirit of Wisdom and built the greatest kingdom in all of history, so that the kings and queens of the earth came to hear his wisdom. How would you like a Spirit of Understanding so the mysteries of the Word of God would be opened to you?  How about a Spirit of Counsel, so that you would be given the exact words to speak in every situation? What if people came to you because they knew that you would have a word for them from the Lord… not the so called gift of prophecy we often see today that largely comes from the mind or the spirit of man?  God said to Jeremiah: “I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in My name saying, “I had a dream.” How long? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart...?” Jeremiah 23:25, 26.

                There are true prophets in the world today, but they are not the ones drawing the huge crowds, in fact very few churches will even allow them in to speak because they don’t carry the message that people want to hear. There are “prophets” operating in the churches today that are operating in the Psychic realm and they are doing well because God’s people no longer have discernment of spirits.

                This is why there is a great shaking coming and it has already begun. That which is not of the Lord will be exposed and this shaking will increase until everything that is not of God and birthed by the Holy Spirit will be shaken out. Our religious facades, our traditions, our dead doctrines, our false claims… everything will be swept away. In fact, many whole churches, even denominations will cease to exist in the next few years. Persecution and a choice between that which is borne of the Spirit and that which is borne of world will flush out all pretenders.

                There is a kind of purity and childlike innocence that must come upon God’s remnant people. We must submit to the refiner’s fire, for Jesus came to minister with the Holy Spirit and with fire, for our God is a consuming fire. It refines and purifies until everything is removed but the pure gold.

                We are the Laodicean church of the final age. But there is great hope for us for Jesus said: “Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him and he with Me.”

                You see, this is the problem with the Laodicean church. Jesus is largely standing outside the door. We have built our church on doctrines rather than on Christ. We have carried out our own agendas and programs in our own way. And even though I don’t even pretend to know how to change this, all I can say is that Jesus was speaking to individuals in the church when he said, “If any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and will dine with him and he with Me.” Rev. 3:20

                But please know this: Our pressing in will not make us stodgy and legalistic and judgmental. In fact it will make us wells of living water which will flow from our innermost being. God is not calling us to tedious strictness, but to the fruit of the Spirit and real and genuine love… love for God and love for our fellow members… bringing healing and restoration into once dead places.

                To the aspiring sons and daughters of God He is saying: “He who overcomes I will grant to him or her to sit down with Me on My throne, even as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” Rev. 3:21

                Demonstrating this kind of love and freedom isn’t easy. We find a tough outer shell of self in which the Spirit of God seems locked away. We have moments of revelation and glimpses of this love and freedom and then the outer shell slams shut in self-protection. Love leaves us vulnerable and we don’t like it for it is the way of the cross… and yet Jesus said, “ If anyone wishes to be My disciple, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Mt. 16:24, Luke 14:26, 27, 33.

                I just happen to believe that if we desire this with all of our hearts and we keep pursuing it in prayer and in practice, Jesus will grant us the desires of our hearts and in the appointed time, He will pour out that final harvest anointing upon us. But to some it must be said that you cannot receive the harvest anointing if you have not first received the anointing of Pentecost… for it is He who prepares us for that greater anointing that is to come.

                That which is soon to come upon the church will be both devastating and glorious for it will shake out the chaff, but it will bring many sons to glory. So it is to those who aspire to follow hard after the Lord that I write and not so much to the casual Christian that has no greater desire than to remain in their comfort zone. May God grant us the seven Spirits of the Lord in due season so that when gross darkness covers the earth, He will say to us. “Arise; Shine, for your light has come upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the people. But the glory of the Lord will arise over you. And His glory will be seen upon you.” Isa. 60:1, 2. This must be our heart’s desire.