THE MESSAGE

THE MESSAGE

                This morning at 1:00 AM Bonnie and I arrived home exhausted from the woman’s retreat. Now when one arrives home at 1 AM, then one does not get up at his customary 3 AM. So it was a little bit after 5AM when God woke me from a dream where I was preaching to the people with great urgency and I was saying these words:

                “I BELIEVE THAT GOD HAS TURNED OUR ATTENTION BACK TO THE FEAST DAYS OF ISRAEL NOT SO THAT WE CAN OBSWERVE THEM PHYSICALLY, BUT SO THAT WE CAN LIVE IN THE FULLNESS OF THEIR LIVING REALITIES.”             This is what I was preaching in my dream.

                Well I was still very tired and so I got up and went to my office, wrote down the words of the dream and then went back to bed. But I had no sooner fallen asleep again when the dream returned and my sermon continued with these words.

                “THERE IS VITAL INFORMATION MISSING FROM THE GOSPEL THAT IS BEING PREACHED TODAY THAT GOD WANTS RESTORED.”

                So again I got up and went back to my office to write this down and here I am. My body and my mind are still sleepy, but God is speaking and when God is speaking we listen and obey. So in my dream I was repeating something else that God has put on my heart lately that I have mentioned several times in morning articles. It is this:

                “The Feast Days of Israel form the spiritual DNA upon which the Gospel is built. So God has restored our attention to the Feasts so that in learning their messages we can have the “everlasting Gospel to preach to those who live on the earth and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.” Rev 14:6.

                I said, “Lord you are going to have to help me with this, since you woke me up with these urgent words. What exactly do you want said?

                Well, the Lord drew my attention to Revelation 14:6-10 and I had to ask just what the everlasting Gospel is that we are to preach to every nation kindred tongue and people in these last days? What is the message that these three angels gave that we haven’t been preaching? Well here it is:

1.       “FEAR GOD AND GIVE GLORY TO HIM FOR THE HOUR OF HIS JUDGMENT HAS COME.” Rev. 14:7

                On this point let me say that you might picture a woman’s retreat as a nice time for women from surrounding states to get together and get acquainted over coffee. Well, think again. The messages that the two woman guest speakers  gave were powerful… powerful enough to flush out the demons… powerful enough to leave the women weeping and crying out for deliverance… powerful enough so that the last 2 hours of every meeting was spent in spiritual warfare and deliverance as we fought for the lives of the women.

                True revival isn’t pretty my friends. It is fantastic and wonderful and even miraculous, since healing, both spiritual and physical was taking place, but the road out of complacency is one that must be fought and only the blood and power of Jesus can deliver us from the clutches of the evil one. If the power of the Lord is not present, then nothing of eternal value will take place and that was why the worship team was there. We came to invite the presence of the Lord and to sing the songs of battle, of breaking chains, and setting captives free and restoring sight to the blind and pushing back the darkness in Jesus’ mighty name!

                People are suffering from positions of weakness because today’s Gospel no longer contains warnings that the hour of judgment is at hand. We become complacent… church as usual… routines we have become accustomed to that often fail to keep the demons and the strongholds and the powers of the enemy at bay. So Satan comes in appearing as an angel of light. He brings the world into the church, oh so subtly. Little by little he gets us to drink the cool-aid… the wine of Babylon.

2.       “WORSHIP HIM WHO MADE THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA AND SPRINGS OF WATERs.” Rev 14:7b

                We don’t believe in evolution, but the poison of it still robs us of our belief in an all -powerful sovereign God who as both able to deliver us, to guide us and protect us. We have often made Him Savior, but not our Lord. We get born again and then we go on living like before, only now we make it to church once a week because the coffee is better and the people are nice and the music is great and we can enjoy an emotional pick-me- up, so why not?

                We satisfy ourselves with Christian sounding sound bites that tickle the ears and make us feel like believers, but in reality we don’t respect our King enough to get into His Word and to learn what He is teaching us. And we don’t press in to know Him in the secret place…And we don’t spend time in conversation with Him… and we don’t believe in being filled and baptized with the Holy Spirit, because those are optional party favors… and so we walk through life carrying all of the burdens that we were supposed to have laid upon the altar and we are still living in the flesh and flesh is no match for the enemy… so in time he gets us to think like the world… to drink from the world’s junk day after day and we can’t figure out why we can’t live in victory.

                So no… revival isn’t pretty because we have to get people back to the cross and to the power of the blood to deliver them from the things that Satan has put on them.

3.       FALLEN, FALLEN IS BABYLON THE GREAT, SHE WHO HAS MADE THE NATIONS DRINK OF THE WINE OF THE PASSION OR HER IMMORALITY.” Rev. 14:8

                America has gone to hell in a hand basket because the church no longer stands in the place of battle. From the 1970s until now we have silently sat back and allowed the devil to take over our nation even as we played church, and God is telling us that the jig is up and it is either time to put up or shut up, for judgement and harvest go together. You don’t have one without the other. Harvest is when the grain gets separated from its chaff and wheat gets separated from the tares and it isn’t pretty. JUDGMENT AND HARVEST MUST GO TOGETHER!

                So… what do the Feasts of Israel have to do with all of this? I am going to put it in all caps so that we don’t miss the point of what God is making to the churches in this hour.

                WE ARE ENTERING INTO A NEW EXODUS! WE ARE BEING CALLED OUT IF EGYPT/BABYLON ONCE AGAIN AND THE FEAST DAYS CONTAIN THE FORMULA BY WHICH WE MUST COME OUT.

                If we leave out any part of the eternal gospel it will be lacking in the necessary power to deliver us from Pharaoh and to leave him drowned in the sea. If we leave out any part of the exodus by which God delivered them, we will not form God’s Remnant people or give birth to the sons and daughters of God who will qualify to rule and to reign with Him.

                We love to paint the blood on the door posts, but we don’t like to eat the Lamb and bitter herbs. We love to call ourselves “born again” but in fact our hearts are still in Egypt. We have become more like Lot’s wife than Abraham’s wife. We don’t want to let go and surrender ourselves to God’s leading. 
                We love passing through the Red Sea, but we somehow linger on the edge until some of Pharaoh’s army makes it to the other side where he dogs our every step because we never really put him to death. We are still dating some of his soldiers… some of his gods.

                Lastly, we seek adventure in the wilderness, but we never quite make it to the foot of Mt. Sinai where Jesus becomes Lord and obedience to Him becomes a way of life.
                We pick and choose what we will do and what we will not do. We dip our finger into the frosting, but we never eat the cake. Worse yet, we eat the desert, but we never eat our meat and vegetables. Our bodies keep craving something which we keep trying to satisfy with Twinkies instead of solid healthy food… and we are sick… and we find it hard to even believe any more that we are children of the King in training to rule and reign with Him. We don’t even have control of our own lives let alone power to deliver and set others free.

                The Gospel that we must preach to the world must get some teeth in it. We preach a largely toothless Gospel that may keep the tithes coming in, but it is not preparing us for the great day of battle that is the harvest.

                Today God is forming an army of righteousness, and if we want to be a soldier in this army, then we must enter into the disciplines of a soldier. We need to put on the full armor of God and engage in the battle… and our sword is the Word of God and we can’t use the sword if we don’t even know what it says… and we can’t even speak right unless we can hear right… and we can’t hear right unless we learn to distinguish God’s voice from the many other voices that call to us. Second hand knowledge isn’t enough. We need to get into scripture and pray for Holy Spirit revelation. It is only that which comes to us by revelation that becomes a part of who we are. It is just as true spiritually as it is physically. WE ARE WHAT WE EAT.

                Many Christians are becoming enamored with Israel these days. They like to place Menorahs in their churches and to blow the shofar and some even go so far as to observe the feasts, but my question is this: Are we allowing the messages of the Feasts to correct and to restore that which has been missing from our Gospel? Are they using the messages of the Feasts as DNA to correct that which is missing from our Gospel… from our lives?

                Well, this is the message that God woke me up to give today… and with it He is confirming to me that I am an old man, because He said in Joel 2 and Acts 2 that old men would dream dreams. But don’t feel sorry for me. I am just one year closer to heaven and I want to finish my course in power and in victory through Jesus Christ. Hallelujah!

                God is doing a work of revival in our church and this woman’s retreat was a part of it and even though I was just there to play bass on the worship team and to sing harmony on a few of the songs… I learned a lot from the fiery woman preachers that peached at this conference and I know that God is raising up a remnant people who will begin to live by His power and by His Word and by His Spirit. Selah.