Reclaiming Fatherhood and Restoring Fathers - Part 2

Sunday, June 17, 2007 (Date written)

This edition is Part 5 of the series I began a few weeks ago on the phenomenal promises contained in Psalm 112. If you did not read the previous editions, I urge you to do so. Please understand that I am not one of those "prosperity preachers." I do believe the modern "Prosperity Gospel" has brought immeasureable spiritual harm to the Body of Christ at-large on a global basis. However, too often we tend to "throw out the baby with the bathwater." There are a great number of passages of Scripture telling us how much God indeed does want us to "prosper and be in (good) health even as our soul prospers." But, the last part of that Scripture is the weightier and balancing part. Prosperity, success, and divine healing and health taken out of context of the rest of Scripture that speaks of seemingly antithetical and counterbalancing matters becomes erroneous teaching that is an abomination to God because that is precisely what God calls "a false balance," which is "an abomination to God."

There is no doubt that the pendulum has swung too far to the extremes concerning prosperity and success in the preaching and teaching of some, especially among the "name it and claim it," "blad it and grab it" crowd — the so-called "Word of Faith" camp. Unfortunately, when that happens the swing of the pendulum is equidistant in the other direction as well. I'm for the true or correct balance in all things; and I believe God is too.

The problem is that when writing about such matters where there is controversy, error, and excess on both ends of the spectrum, it is difficult to speak the truth without sounding to those who favor one extreme of the pendulum swing that you are part of and aligned with those favoring the other extreme. In my own case, I'm not part of any camp except God's. My desire is to be aligned with the Truth. Of course many would make the same claim, but any truth taken to extremes becomes error, yet the error of the extemists does not make the truth any less true.

I really believe the only safeguard against error in matters of truth is that we must have a contemporaneous co-existence of the Spirit with the Truth in order to come down on God's side with a correct, rather than false, balance. As the Spirit said through the Apostle Paul, matters of truth are "spiritually-appraised" or "spiritually-discerned." That's why Jesus called the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. May we all seek and possess the "Truth" of the Spirit in all these vital matters of the Kingdom.

With that preface, let's move on to the message of this post. For those who have not read it in previous posts, here again is this powerful Psalm 112, on which this series is based, in its entirety.

Psalm 112
1 Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.
2 His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.
4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.
5 Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.
6 Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever.
7 He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
8 His heart is secure, he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.
9 He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever; his horn will be lifted high in honor.
10 The wicked man will see and be vexed, he will gnash his teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.

The entire Psalm 112 is speaking about the righteous man who fears the Lord and who finds great delight in his commands. Yet, in speaking about this man and his life, the focus is not only on him, but also on his children, his household, and the inheritance and legacy he leaves behind that continues to live long after he is gone. Thus, this man is a father and grandfather, and the patriarch of a lineage that follows after him.

As I was musing upon what I would be writing next in this series, the Lord suddenly and unexpectedly began giving me some prophetic revelation concerning the topic reflected in the title of this post. On this Father's Day of 2007, I am making a start at sharing some of what He showed me, in the context of the current series.

Reclaiming Fatherhood and Restoring Fathers!

It simply cannot be an accident or coincidence that the Old Testament concludes in the last two verses in the last chapter of the last book, Malachi, with this prophecy:

"Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. And he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse."

As I stated at the beginning, I believe the primary purpose of the prophetic, or at least the Elijah-type of prophetic ministry, those who operate in the "spirit and power of Elijah" (Lk. 1:17), is to restore fatherhood and reclaim fathers, both in the spiritual and natural realms (more on this in the next post).

Reflected in the substance of this Malachi prophecy that culminates the Old Testament is the fact that the primary purpose of the prophetic, despite the fact that the modern prophetic restoration movement seems to focus on everything but, is to restore fatherhood and reclaim fathers, both in the spiritual and natural realms. As we discussed in the previous post, there is a major dearth of fatherhood manifest in the land today that is producing numerous curses in the land, just as Malachi's prophecy predicted.

The purpose of the restoration of the prophetic is not to use it for self-aggrandizing purposes such as to build a large ministry base of people who share an interest in the prophetic, or prophetic organizations and networks comprised of "prophetic people," as some have seen it as being. In fact, my personal view is, all that is a bastardization of the prophetic restoration. I personally believe it is blasphemous to "use" any move of God for self-aggrandizement, and that those who do so heap judgment upon themselves.

Historically, self-aggrandizement was the primary reason for God writing "Ichabod" over former movements and so-called "revivals" of that past after only a few years of duration or less. Most former moves were only short-lived, though those who "hitched their wagons" to what God was doing attempted to "ride the wave" many years after God brought cessation to a movement and the cloud by day and fire by night had already moved on. Unfortunately, there are always those who believe God has delegated "ownership" of a move, revival, or emphasis of the Spirit, that leads them to construct man-made wooden carts through which to capitalize all they possibly can on what God is doing. And, inevitably such attitudes of entitlement and ascendency opens the door wide to evil spirits that eventually will corrupt both the movement as well as its principals and participants.

Virtually all former movements of the Spirit were attended with "camps" who refused to break camp long after the Spirit had moved on, but continued to build the three tabernacles per the "Peter Principle" proffered by Simon Peter as he, James, and John were "coming down" (both physically and emotionally) following the Mount of Transfiguration experience: "let us build three tabernacles." There are always those who want to capture and incarcerate the Spirit in their man-made tabernacle of dwelling, and confine Him to their exclusive and elite camp. But the Spirit will have none of that! He no longer dwells in human tabernacles and temples, organizations and networks, made with human hands, but in human hearts. The Glory of God still cannot be carried on wooden (symbolizes man-made), ox-drawn (oxen typify human ministers) carts, but must be carried on the shoulders of the Levites, for the government (of the Church Jesus is building) "shall be upon HIS shoulders" [Is. 9:6] (apostles and prophets, in particular).

The purpose of the prophetic is far greater and of a much higher level than what many claiming to be prophets are operating in today.

As I stated in an article I authored and published in 2003 concerning prophetic purpose:

"It's not to use the prophetic to build a name for oneself, or to promote and proliferate a ministry, a minister, or a movement, or to develop a means of support or income for a ministry or minister, or to sell books, or to become well-known or famous, or to build a church, a following, or a prophetic organization, or to achieve personal ambitions. The true Purpose of the prophetic is none of those things."

The foundation of the Kingdom of God is fatherhood. In essence, all Kingdom principles are fathering principles, rooted in fatherhood. There is no higher office or function than fatherhood. Our relationship with God is a relationship between a Father and His children. Yet, God delegates to human parents the role and tasks of parenting His children while they are minors. Though it seems to be such a difficult concept for human parents to grasp, "children are a gift of the Lord." Children come from the Lord. Human parents are not the "owners" of their children, but they are merely on loan to them while they are minors, and are given the assignment from God to rear them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. In the final judgment, parents, will have to give account to God for how they reared their children.

So also, as it is in the case of the natural family here on earth, there are those in the Church to whom God assigns the task of spiritually rearing His spiritual offspring, i.e., Born Again believers. Just as God designed the human family with parents, so also He designed the spiritual family with spiritual parents. There are numerous scriptures that support the concept that the Church is the family expanded and the family is the Church in miniscule. The government God has ordained for the Church is the same as that for the family — that is the import of the Apostle Paul's dissertation in Ephesians 6. The role of human parents with their children while they are minors and living under their covering and care is fourfold: 1) govern; 2) guard; 3) guide; and, 4) prepare. The role of spiritual parents in the Body of Christ — Fivefold Ministers — is similar (cf., Eph. 4:7-16; 1 Cor. 12:28). Morever, as human parents are the foundation of the natural family, Apostles and Prophets are the foundation of the spiritual family of God, the Church (Eph. 2:20).

Fathering failure, or the dearth of fatherhood, produces dysfunctional and self-destructive familial relationships, both in natural families as well as spiritual families, i.e., churches. The profile of dysfunctional families is fraught with rivalry, competition, jealousy, contentions, strife, and such things. Beyond the pews and behind the platforms, churches, because they are spiritual families, are likewise fraught with such things. So it is also within the ranks of fivefold ministers. The primary cause of the lack of collegiality and collaboration, or colabor, that God intended to be manifest among fivefold ministers is the lack of godly and effectual spiritual fathering in the Body of Christ. Indeed, the blame for dysfunctional spiritual relationships and families must be laid squarely at the feet of Fivefold Ministers. Dysfunctional leadership produces dysfunctional progeny (offspring). The unfortunate result of the dysfunctional leadership in the Body of Christ is the spiritual immaturity, impotence, and poor productivity now generally manifest in the Body of Christ (cf, Eph. 4:7-16).

There is so much more God has shown me about fatherhood that will bring abundant blessings into your life if you will simply receive it, believe it, comply with it, and decree it; in other words, if you will GET INTO AGREEMENT WITH GOD! Be sure to stay connected to hear the rest. It has the power to revolutionize your life.

To be continued....

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Reclaiming Fatherhood and Restoring Fathers - Part 1

Sunday, June 17, 2007 (Date written)

This edition is Part 4 of the series I began a few weeks ago on the phenomenal promises contained in Psalm 112.

Before I get into this message of this post, I feel it necessary to preface it with some comments because of the controversy of the subject matter.

Please understand that I am not one of those "prosperity preachers." I do believe the modern "Prosperity Gospel" has brought immeasurable spiritual harm to the Body of Christ at-large on a global basis. However, too often we are wont to "throw out the baby with the bathwater."

There are a great number of passages of Scripture telling us how much God indeed does want us to "prosper and be in (good) health even as our soul prospers." But, the last part of that Scripture is the weightier and balancing part. Prosperity, success, and divine healing and health taken out of context of the rest of Scripture that speaks of seemingly antithetical and counterbalancing matters can become an abomination to God because that is precisely what God calls "a false balance." There is no doubt that the pendulum has swung too far to the extremes concerning prosperity and success in the preaching and teaching of some, especially among the "name it and claim it," "blab it and grab it" crowd -- the so-called "Word of Faith" camp. Unfortunately, when that happens the swing of the pendulum is equidistant in the other direction as well. I'm for the true or correct balance in all things; and I believe God is too.

The problem is that when writing about such matters where there is controversy and error and excess on both ends of the spectrum it is difficult to speak the truth without sounding to those who favor one extreme of the pendulum swing that you are part of and aligned with those favoring the other extreme. In my own case, I'm not part of any camp except God's. I have no denominational or protodenominational affiliations, alliances, or alignments. My desire is to be aligned with the Truth. Of course many would make the same claim, but any truth taken to extremes becomes error, yet the error of the extremists does not make the truth any less true.

I really believe the only safeguard against error in matters of truth is that we must have a contemporaneous co-existence of the Spirit with the Truth in order to come down on God's side with a correct, rather than false, balance. As the Spirit said through the Apostle Paul, matters of truth are "spiritually-appraised" or -discerned. That's why Jesus called the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. May we all seek and possess the "Truth" of the Spirit in all these vital matters of the Kingdom.

With that preface, let's move on to the message of this post. If you did not read the previous editions, I urge you to do so. For those who have not read it in previous posts, here is this powerful Psalm again in its entirety.

Psalm 112
1 Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.
2 His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.
4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.
5 Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.
6 Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever.
7 He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
8 His heart is secure, he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.
9 He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever; his horn will be lifted high in honor.
10 The wicked man will see and be vexed, he will gnash his teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.

The entire Psalm 112 is speaking about the righteous man who fears the Lord and who finds great delight in his commands. Yet, in speaking about this man and his life, the focus is not only on him, but also on his children, his household, and the inheritance and legacy he leaves behind that continues to live long after he is gone. Thus, this man is a father and grandfather, and the patriarch of a lineage that follows after him.

As I was musing upon what I would be writing next in this series, the Lord suddenly and unexpectedly began giving me some prophetic revelation concerning the topic reflected in the title of this post. On this Father's Day of 2007, I am making a start at sharing some of what He showed me, in the context of the current series.

Reclaiming Fatherhood and Restoring Fathers!

Note: Though all the writing experts say to do so is a major no-no, I need to preface this article with a bit of a disclaimer, which is that I am not supplying a lot of Biblical citings to support what I say here, as one usually does in writing articles or books. I felt that the Lord wanted me to post this article pretty much in the form I received it -- as a prophetic revelation. It is more revelational than it is instructional, meaning didactic, or given in the form of teaching. Albeit, I certainly believe it to be Biblical, that is, in agreement with the Bible, or I would not be publishing it. What I pass on here was revealed through the Spirit (prophetic revelation) and thus is spiritually appraised, and cannot be understood through the natural or carnal mind (1 Cor. 2:6-16).

It simply cannot be an accident or coincidence that the Old Testament concludes in the last two verses in the last chapter of the last book, Malachi, with this prophecy:

"Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. And he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse."

As I stated at the beginning, I believe the primary purpose of the prophetic, or at least the Elijah-type of prophetic ministry, those who operate in the "spirit and power of Elijah" (Lk. 1:17), is to restore fatherhood and reclaim fathers, both in the spiritual and natural realms (more on this in the next post).

The state of affairs in the world today makes it evident that the land has been smitten with a curse as the Malachi prophecy predicts. Corruption and criminality is ubiquitous. We see revealed in this one passage of Scripture culminating the Old Testament, the fundamental root-cause of all that corruption and criminality -- a dearth of fatherhood.

History and sociological statistics tell us that wherever and whenever there is an absence of fatherhood there is an increase in sin and rebellion, along with the resultant crime and corruption sin and rebellion engender societally. The produce of a dearth of fatherhood, both in individual lives and collective society, is disobedience of all sorts and kinds, both to God's authority and God's delegated authority -- human authority (Rom. 12). Indeed, fatherhood is the expression or manifestation on earth of God's authority. God is a Father -- the ultimate Father. He created the human race out of His need for fellowship with someone other than Himself, that is, the Trinity.

The void of fatherhood can be filled by nothing else. Fatherhood is comprised of unique properties and characteristics, and it produces unique results that cannot be produced through any other office or function. There is no substitute for fatherhood; when it is absent there is a void. When there is a void, there is the absence of the things that fatherhood provides.

Motherhood, though needed and necessary, is no substitute for fatherhood. Mothering cannot replace or substitute for fathering. When and where there is motherhood but no fatherhood, there is a stark lack of what fatherhood provides, along with the inevitable and unavoidable fruits of that lack. One of the most significant and impactful of those voids is that manhood and all God intended it to entail is not modeled. In that vacuum, a male child cannot see what Godly manhood looks like and has nothing to emulate, and so the vacuum is often filled, in some respects, instead with traits and thought patterns modeled by the women who are the authority figures in his life.

God is Love. God is "THE" Father. Fatherhood is synonymous with Agape-Love, the God-kind of love. Fathering is the ultimate expression of love (God, who is a Father, is love). Fatherhood love is the purest love. Love, that is, Fatherhood, never fails. God never fails. Nevertheless, human fathers fail. Yet, though human fathers fail, fatherhood never fails. God is a Father and He cannot fail. The failings or failure of fathers is not a failure of fatherhood.

God is Spirit. Fatherhood is of the Spirit, spiritual, though not ethereal, meaning not of this world or non-substantial. Fatherhood is a manifestation of the Spirit of the Father. Fatherhood is a spiritual and therefore a supernatural thing, not a human, natural thing. Yet, fatherhood cannot be merely "spiritualized," that is, be manifest separate from the natural. While it is intrinsically spiritual, of the unseen realm, it is manifest in the natural, the seen realm. Fatherhood is the reflection of the Father. Jesus said to the disciples, Philip in particular, "He who has seen me has seen the Father," demonstrating that the Son was a reflection of the Father.

The foundation of the Kingdom of God is fatherhood. In essence, all Kingdom principles are fathering principles, rooted in fatherhood. There is no higher office or function than fatherhood. Our relationship with God is a relationship between a Father and His children.

Fathering failure, or the dearth of fatherhood, produces dysfunctional and self-destructive familial relationships, both in natural families as well as spiritual families, i.e., churches. The profile of dysfunctional families is fraught with rivalry, competition, jealousy, contentions, strife, and such things. Beyond the pews and behind the platforms, churches, because they are spiritual families, are likewise fraught with such things. So it is also within the ranks of fivefold ministers. The primary cause of the lack of collegiality and collaboration, or colabor, that God intended to be manifest among fivefold ministers is the lack of godly and effectual spiritual fathering in the Body of Christ. Indeed, the blame for dysfunctional spiritual relationships and families must be laid squarely at the feet of Fivefold Ministers. Dysfunctional leadership produces dysfunctional progeny (offspring). The unfortunate result of the dysfunctional leadership in the Body of Christ is the spiritual immaturity, impotence, and poor productivity now generally manifest in the Body of Christ (cf, Eph. 4:7-16).

Fatherhood is an exclusively male office or function. Only SONS can be fathers. Even illegitimate sons can become legitimate fathers. Females cannot father. The most spiritual female cannot father.

Fatherhood is intrinsically an internal not an external matter, albeit, it is manifested externally. Fatherhood cannot be externally worn like a shirt. Buying a T-shirt with "Super Dad" on it, does not make you a Super Dad or father. Fathering is not mere sentiment, but actions, actions of servitude. A father is simultaneously the ultimate servant, laying down his life for his family, and the ultimate source or gateway of agape-love to his family.

The awful legacy of the Garden of Eden was a fathering failure. Adam was created by God in the Image of God the Father. God intended for Adam to reflect Him even in his relationship with his helpmate suitable, Eve. Yes, Adam was to be a father to his wife; that is, God desired that he manifest the Heavenly Father on earth to his wife and family. Ultimately, Adam's FAILURE was not in his following of deceived Eve, but in the FATHERING of his helpmate (wife). In fact, it can be rightly said that the ultimate cause of "original sin" was a failure in reflecting the Image of the Father. When God created Adam in His own Image, He created a Father, because God is a Father. Adam failed as the first human father of the first family. The first result of that failure was Adam and Eve's precipitous fall into perdition, and the second result of his sin and rebellion against God was the rivalry mentioned before, in this case the contention was murderous, in that his first offspring, Cain, was a murderer, who slew his brother Abel. Right from the beginning of the human race we see demonstrated the irrefutable fact that when fathers fail, families fail. When the effectual function of fatherhood is absent, whether through abrogation or ignorance, families are dysfunctional.

Husbandhood is synonymous with fatherhood, in the Spirit. The characteristics of fatherhood are the characteristics of Godly husbandhood. After the fall, God placed in the woman (females), an innate desire for her husband's headship or authority over her (Gen. 3:16), as a covering or protection against demons, the fallen angels (1 Cor. 11:10), by whom (the serpent, Satan) she was deceived in the Garden of Eden. Though modern psychology paints it as a bane and something to be avoided, women are "wired" by God, in looking for a husband to look for a FATHER, because subconsciously she is searching for a man who will be to her what her father had been to her (if he was a righteous man and father) and she is also looking for the man who will be the father of their children, sons (fathers) and daughters (helpmates), who will continue the cycle of human reproduction.

Whether they know it or not, and though those steeped in modern feminism will bristle and gnash their teeth at such a statement, women are subconsciously looking for a man to be a father to them in their search for their lifemate. Though, it must be understood that when a woman is operating only or predominantly in the flesh, rather than "walk(ing) in the Spirit" (Gal. 5) and therefore being led by the Spirit, they will not be guided by those internal, God-placed desires.

Jesus said one of the primary reasons for His coming in the flesh was to show us the Father, and He said that he who has seen Him, has seen the Father. He was the Father come in the flesh. Jesus was the exact representation of the Father. He was not The Father, but He was the pure reflection or replica of the Father. And, whatever He saw and heard the Father doing, Jesus did. That was the model He came to present to us. He was the prototype of the Sons of God, the Holy Race, the People of God, who were born of the Spirit, and whose ultimate quest and goal is to emulate or reflect the Father in their living as well as innermost-being.

Though He had no human wife and laid with no woman (and certainly no man, per the blasphemous allegations of homosexual reprobates of recent note), meaning He had no sexual relationship with any human while here in the flesh on earth, He was the incorruptible Seed of the Father, who died and was buried in the earth, in order to undergo the miraculous metamorphosis of life and thereby become the Progenitor (Father) of the Holy Race, the people who once were not a people, but now are the People of God, the Holy Remnant, the Chosen Few, the Betrothed Unto Christ. It was not only an immaculate conception but also immaculate reproduction. Thus, Jesus, while He is the Son of God and God the Son, was the Spiritual Father of the Holy Race, the Redeemed Humanity.

Here's some Good News about fatherhood, fathers, and fathering:

• Human fathers are imperfect, but fatherhood is not imperfect, especially that of the Heavenly Father.
• Human fathers have faults, but the faults of human fathers is not a fault of fatherhood.
• Fatherhood can be delayed and/or suspended, but it can be reclaimed and restored.
• Fathers who were not themselves truly and properly fathered as sons can truly and properly father, because God said, "And all your sons will be taught of the Lord (God), And the well-being of your sons will be great" (Is. 54:13; Jn. 6:45), and God is the ultimate Father.

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers!

There is so much more God has shown me about fatherhood that will bring abundant blessings into your life if you will simply receive it, believe it, comply with it, and decree it; in other words, if you will GET INTO AGREEMENT WITH GOD! Be sure to stay connected to hear the rest. It has the power to revolutionize your life.

To be continued....

email: slambert@slm.org
web: http://www.slm.org/

Decreeing Wealth and Riches In Your House!

It's a shame that one would even have to preface an article about such a totally biblical issue as the one addressed in this post. But, I feel compelled to do so. That is the unfortunate result of the proliferation of counterfeit gospels.

Please understand that I am not one of those "prosperity preachers." I do believe the modern "Prosperity Gospel" has brought immeasureable spiritual harm to the Body of Christ at-large on a global basis. However, too often we are wont to "throw out the baby with the bathwater." There are a great number of passages of Scripture telling us how much God indeed does want us to "prosper and be in (good) health even as our soul prospers." But, the last part of that Scripture is the weightier and balancing part. Prosperity, success, and divine healing and health taken out of context of the rest of Scripture that speaks of seemingly antithetical and counterbalancing matters can become an abomination to God because that is precisely what God calls "a false balance."

There is no doubt that the pendulum has swung too far to the extremes concerning prosperity and success in the preaching and teaching of some, especially among the "name it and claim it," "blad it and grab it" crowd -- the so-called "Word of Faith" camp. Unfortunately, when that happens the swing of the pendulum is equidistant in the other direction as well. I'm for the true or correct balance in all things; and I believe God is too.

The problem is that when writing about such matters where there is controversy and error and excess on both ends of the spectrum it is difficult to speak the truth without sounding to those who favor one extreme of the pendulum swing that you are part of and aligned with those favoring the other extreme. In my own case, I'm not part of any camp except God's. I have no denominational or protodenominational affiliations, alliances, or alignments. My desire is to be aligned with the Truth. Of course many would make the same claim, but any truth taken to extremes becomes error, yet the error of the extemists does not make the truth any less true.

I really believe the only safeguard against error in matters of truth is that we must have a contemporaneous co-existence of the Spirit with the Truth in order to come down on God's side with a correct, rather than false, balance. As the Spirit said through the Apostle Paul, matters of truth are spiritually-appraised or -discerned. That's why Jesus called the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. May we all seek and possess the "Truth" of the Spirit in all these vital matters of the Kingdom. With that preface, let's move on to the message of this post.

Psalm 112
1 Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.
2 His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.

In the previous posts, we've discussed verses one and two of this powerful prophetic Psalm. In this post, I want to talk about some of the import and application of verse three. As I said before, what a glorious picture the psalmist portrays of the life and posterity of "the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in His commands!" The list of blessings it says will accrue to that man is truly mindboggling! And they concern every aspect of life that, when the final curtain of life comes down, really counts!

Verse three states that wealth and riches are in the house of "the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in His commands!" What a declaration! What a command!

In our excavation of this Psalm for the truth it holds, we must keep in mind that the blessings it speaks of are for the person who fears the Lord and finds great delight in His commands. The blessings are not for those who have no reverential fear of God and who do not take pleasure in obeying the commands of the Lord but rather are resistant to them.

About three years ago, while in prayer, the Lord gave me a command regarding what on the surface may seem to be a rather simple revelation. However, it is much more profound than it may seem at first. He said, "Tell my people that everything having to do with walking and fellowshipping with Me and tapping into the vast benefits of My Kingdom have to do with being in agreement with Me!"

Wow! As I have pondered the depths of that statement since I heard it in my spirit, I have marveled over and been amazed at just how profound and how true it is. That truly is what it is all about -- being in agreement with God. And as with all Kingdom principles, there is no gray area. It's either black or white. As Jesus said, we're either FOR Him, or we're AGAINST Him -- there's no in between. The tree and its fruit is either good or it's evil. You're either IN the Kingdom or you're OUT of the Kingdom. You're either of your father the devil, or your spiritual progenitor is God the Father. You're either saved, or you're lost. There are no "tweeners" with God and the things of God.

Over the last thirty years or so, there's been a lot of teaching on the topic of "the prayer of agreement," "word of faith," and related matters. But, over my three decades plus of ministry I can tell from my conversations with believers that the vast majority of the Body of Christ does not understand this "simple" revelation -- that the Christian walk is all about being in agreement with God. Being in agreement with God, His Word, Will, and Ways, is the bedrock of true Christianity. I wonder how much easier our "walk" would be if we were not "kicking against the goads" most of the time. I wonder how much easier our lives would be if we would simply do what the eagle does -- instead of fighting the wind currents, turn to fly with the wind of the Spirit, that is, position ourselves so as to be agreement with God instead of resisting Him. Our ALTITUDE, metaphorically speaking, is truly determined by our ATTITUDE in regards to agreement with God. We can either spend our lives wearing ourselves out spiritually, emotionally, and physically, flapping our wings (self-works) to navigate the course of our life, or we can simply start higher, because we live higher, and soar on the strong currents of the Spirit, meaning, get in agreement with God.

God tells us in His Word that we should, "Resist the DEVIL," and that resistance will result in him fleeing from US. But, the opposite is true in our relationship with God. Instead of being resistant to God, we are to draw near to Him, and that will result in Him drawing near to us. In fact, it states categorically, that "He WILL draw near to you." That indicates it is His will to draw near to us, and that happens when we make the first move toward Him, and also it is indicating that it is definitive that He WILL draw near to you. In other words, you can take it to the bank.

God declares to every believer: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'" (Jer. 29:11). Wow! God Almighty states categorically here unto whosoever will believe and receive it that He has PLANS for our lives, plans to prosper us and not harm us, plans to give us hope and a blessed destiny or future. But, in order to live the life God has planned for us, we must get into agreement with God about that life, about those plans. We must become cooperative with Him and His plans for our lives. It's just that simple...or difficult...depending on our willingness to be in agreement with Him and in compliance with His conditions or commandments. In another place God declares, "If you be willing and obedient you shall eat of the good of the land" (Is. 1:19)

I am wholly convinced that we, the Body of Christ, collectively, have no idea how much God really does want to bring these promises of prosperity and good into our lives. One of the reasons for that I believe is two demonic spirits that prevail over the vast majority of people, including redeemed saints -- the spirit of inferiority and the spirit of condemnation. To varying degrees, we are all like the ten spies who came back from their surveillance of the Promise Land, saying the land surely does have all the things in it God said it does, but "we are not able" because there are inhabitants of the land (albeit, illegal trespassers) who appear as giants in our sight and we appear as peons in their sight, so therefore we are not able to conquer and take possession of the Land, despite the Word of the Lord to us. There is some of that in us all, I suspect. And my observations tell me that there is a whole lot of that in the majority of people, including believers.

I wonder what would happen if church leaders all over the world would begin to attack those spirits in the lives of their congregations and followers, in a concerted way. I wonder what would happen? I wonder what would happen if pastors and other fivefold ministers would begin to exercise the authority and power they have been given by Jesus in the very first tenet of what we call "The Great Commission" and begin to cast (literally, drive) spirits of inferiority and self-condemnation out of their congregants and followers.

I wonder what would happen if say on "Independence Day" in nations all over the world, the Fourth of July in America, leaders would come into agreement and unity on that day, and stand before their congregations, and COMMAND under the authority of the name of Jesus, that devils that are causing people to feel inferior and condemned, and therefore unable or incapable of conquering and prospering as God's Word says, to loose the people, to leave them, and set them free, them and their children and their children's children? I wonder what would happen if leaders around the world would in unison declare this July 4, 2007 to be believers "Financial Independence Day?" I wonder what would happen if leaders and believers would begin to decree that, according to the authority of the Word of God, wealth and riches ARE in the house of God's people?

My speculation is that hell would SHAKE! Chains of captivity would miraculously and instantaneously fall off their captives! Believers around the world would be LOOSED from their bonds of poverty and lack. Suddenly, multitudes of believers everywhere would experience a hell-shaking, earth-jarring, TURN AROUND in their lives, that would cause them to begin to prosper and have a hope and a future, exactly as God decreed in His Word through the Prophet Jeremiah. I believe if believers and leaders around the world will begin to believe what the prophets are speaking on behalf of God that we will truly begin to succeed and prosper (2 Chron. 20:20).

However, I also believe that you need not wait for the Fourth of July to be liberated from the strongly oppressive captivity of poverty. I believe there are some fivefold ministers who have been especially anointed by God as "deliverers," Moses-types, who have the authority to deliver you out of the "Egypt" of bondage, degradation, and misery of slavery to the Pharaoh of poverty and financial captivity. There are anointed messengers who have been given authority from Heaven to decree release to you. You need to find one, and ask him to pray with you and decree these things into your life.

Now some would question whether or not this idea of decreeing things to happen is biblically sound. Well, all I can say is, look at what God says in this powerful passage from Job 22:

21 "Yield now and be at peace with Him;
Thereby good will come to you.
22 "Please receive instruction from His mouth
And establish His words in your heart.
23 "If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored;
If you remove unrighteousness far from your tent,
24 And place your gold in the dust,
And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks,
25 Then the Almighty will be your gold
And choice silver to you.
26 "For then you will delight in the Almighty
And lift up your face to God.
27 "You will pray to Him, and He will hear you;
And you will pay your vows.
28 "You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you;
And light will shine on your ways.

That entire passage pretty much speaks for itself regarding the financial blessings that shall come to the house of those who are yielded to and at peace with God, that is, IN AGREEMENT WITH HIM, who make Him their gold and silver, or treasure. But look at the promise in verse 28. It says that when we are in agreement with God, when we are revering and honoring Him as our silver and our gold, our true treasure, we will pray to Him and He will hear us, and supply us with the wherewithal to pay all our vows to Him, whether financial or spiritual, and we will also DECREE a thing, and what we decree will be established for us, or come to pass, and the light of God shall shine on our ways.

So do we have the power to decree that wealth and riches are in our house and have it to come to pass? My answer is: YES! Unequivocally and unquestionably! First we have to get into agreement with God that this is His desire for us. Stop all the nonsensical, religious spirit inspired thinking that somehow poverty is connected with spirituality. Remove the bumper stickers that say, "Poor, But Proud," off our cars and and its curse off our lives. And begin to accept into our hearts God's declaration that His plans for us are plans for prosperity and not poverty, blessings and not curses, in order that we might have a hope and a destiny.

Visit Our Website
If you have not been to the website in a while, be sure you visit and check out the articles in the Prophetic Perspective and the Real Truth Digest. There's also a new book I wrote, Dunamis! Power From On High!, which is all about the mighty power available to every believer through the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

There is so much more God has shown me through this powerful prophetic Psalm 112 that will bring abundant blessings into your life if you will simply receive it, believe it, comply with it, and decree it; in other words, if you will GET INTO AGREEMENT WITH GOD! Be sure to stay connected to hear the rest. It has the power to revolutionize your life.

I invite your questions and comments. Simply include them in an email to slambert@slm.org. If you would like to speak to me by phone about these teachings or want me to prophetically decree into your life, include your request in your email with your comments and I will reply.

The Promise of Blessings Upon Your Children

Psalm 112
1 Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.
2 His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.
4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.
5 Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.
6 Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever.
7 He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
8 His heart is secure, he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.
9 He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever;
his horn will be lifted high in honor.
10 The wicked man will see and be vexed, he will gnash his teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.

In the previous post I began sharing with you what the Lord was speaking to me about the prophetic promises contained in this powerful prophetic psalm. The list of blessings it says will accrue to the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands is truly mindboggling! As I said there, I was totally blown away by what it says concerning not only the blessings that come upon that person, but also upon his/her children, and their children's children!

God declares and decrees that the posterity of those people who fear the LORD and find great delight in his commands "will be MIGHTY in the land!" They are not wimps or casper-milquetoast people! They don't live their lives in a corner, cowering in fear and trepidation. They do not live their lives anonymously; they are known and noticed wherever they go. People know who they are! Perhaps more tellingly, as with Jesus and the Apostle Paul, demons know who they are, as well. Whatever their hand finds to do, they do it with all their MIGHT. They've established a habit of being STRONG in the Lord and in the POWER of HIS MIGHT! They've learned that the joy of the Lord is their strength. They are indefatigible, indestructable, and invincible. THEY ARE MIGHTY PEOPLE!

The children of the man who fears God and finds great delight in His commands are the real reflector of his life! The seed he sowed while living, germinates and produces a multiplied harvest in the lives of his children, who are exponentially more blessed in every aspect of their lives than was he during his lifespan on the earth. As Proverbs 13:22 says, "A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children, but a sinner's wealth is stored up for the righteous.

It has been both astonishing and humbling to see the Lord's workings to bring forth these things in my own life. Just a few days ago, on May 3rd, my daughter, Angela, and I celebrated the one year anniversary of our reunion after 37 and a half years of involuntary separation that began when she was only 6 months old. I first told about our reunion in the tribute to my father I wrote and posted on my website last year. In addition to telling about some of our experiences from time to time in my various writing forums, she and I plan to co-author a book relating the life-revolutionizing impact this reunion has had upon both of our lives, as well as her children.

What a year this past twelve months has been! In some ways it seemed like only a month. In other ways it's seemed like a hundred years! While the victories have been phenomenal, the battles have been ferocious! I had the indescribeable joy, honor, and privilege of leading my daughter to the Lord and laying hands on her to receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, and have witnessed firsthand one of the fastest and most profound life transformations I have ever seen or heard about as the indwelling Spirit has performed in her His sanctifying work.

The Lord has continued to also use me to facilitate my daughter's ongoing deliverance from demonic influence and bondage, which has been one of the most thorough cleansings and deepest purgings I've ever had a part in, though I've so often yearned for it in the case of many others to whom I've ministered over the years. Truly, we have in her case plumbed a significant portion of the depths of the passage, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come!" (2 Cor. 5:17). She is truly a new creature, and every day old things are passing away, becoming passe, obsolete, and dead, while we truly do behold in amazement the new things that have come to replace the old things and ways.

As great as the transformation has been, still so much more is yet to come as that maturation process "unto the measure of the stature that belongs to fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13) continues, as it does in us all. It is altogether astounding what the Holy Spirit CAN do in us all, if only we get out of His way and let Him have His way, yielding to His supernatural sanctifying power!

After 38 years of living with a gaping void that could not be filled by anything or anyone else, I cannot describe to you the overflowing joy I am now experiencing in knowing that whatever small portion of the Kingdom of God I am able to appropriate in my life, it is a seed -- an "incorruptible seed" -- that will produce an abundant harvest in my posterity, that is, my children's lives, and their children's lives, and on through the lineage that shall come should Jesus tarry. Such a prospect has given me a new impetus for living for Christ and striving against the devil!

Every day I am seeing more and more of the promises of Psalm 112 being infused into the life of and implanted into the future of my daughter and her three children (who, by the way, she in turn led to the Lord and who have also received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit). As the writer began the Psalm, I too shout the exultation, "Praise the Lord!"

"O, that multiplied thousands of the children of God could begin THIS YEAR of 2007 to inherit these promises in their lives, and sow the seeds of righteousness into their children's lives!

The second promise of this powerful Psalm, found in verse 3, is that WEALTH and RICHES are in the house of the man who fears God and finds great delight in His commands! What a promise! And how much greater number of God's people need to appropriate this promise into their lives in these last days when the funding of the purposes and plans of God requires such a superabundance of just that -- wealth and riches. But our discussion of that promise will have to wait until the next edition.

Visit Our Website

If you have not been to the website in a while, be sure you visit and check out the articles in the Prophetic Perspective and the Real Truth Digest. There's also a new book I wrote, Dunamis! Power From On High! , which is all about the mighty power available to every believer through the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

In the next post I'll tell you more about what God has shown me through this powerful Psalm and the application it has to your life.

The Blessings Coming to the Righteous

Yesterday I was reading Psalm 112, and was totally blown away by the prophetic promises it contains! I just had to write to share with you what the Lord was speaking to me about you through it. I say "you," because I believe you are one who fears the Lord and finds delight in His commands!

Psalm 112
1 Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.
2 His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.
4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.
5 Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.
6 Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever.
7 He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
8 His heart is secure, he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.
9 He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever; his horn will be lifted high in honor.
10 The wicked man will see and be vexed, he will gnash his teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.

What a glorious picture the psalmist portrays of the life and posterity of "the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands!" The list of blessings it says will accrue to that man is truly mindboggling! And they concern every aspect of life that, when the final curtain of life comes down, really counts!

Indeed, the overall message of this Psalm is that the blessings God bestows upon the man who fears God and finds great delight in His commands are all-encompassing. That is affirmed by the fact that this Psalm is actually an acrostic, each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Its message is an Old Testament pre-parallel of Jesus' statement that comprises the conclusion of the final Book of the New Testament, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Rev. 22:13)

The very first aspect of these blessings that inure to the man who fears God and finds great delight in His commands concerns his children, who are is posterity and ultimate legacy. His children are MIGHTY in the land. They are not among the down and out, downtrodden, destitute, and despirited of the land in which they live. Rather, they are the up and overers, who overcome all obstacles and vanquish every foe, against all odds. THEY ARE MIGHTY PEOPLE! They are indefatigible, indestructable, and invincible. They never say die, and refuse to quit. They cannot go down for going UP! They cannot go under for going OVER! They cannot be overcome, for they are overcomers. They cannot be conquered, for they are more than conquerers. Their response to every challenge is to rise up, rather than run away; to confront it, rather than cower. THAT is indeed a MIGHTY people!

They are not the downtrodden of the land where they live. Rather, the posterity of the man who fears God and finds great delight in His commands subdue every inch of ground where their feet have trod, making it part and parcel of their assigned domain. They are "the powers that be," the so-called "high and mighty" of their region, those who have "made their mark" or "made a name for themselves." They are not anonymous, unknown, and unnoticed. People (and demons) around them know who they are!

The children of the man who fears God and finds great delight in His commands are the real reflection of his life! The seed he sowed while living, germinates and produces a multiplied harvest in the lives of his children, who are exponentially more blessed in every aspect of their lives than he was during his lifespan on the earth. As Proverbs 13:22 says, "A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children, but a sinner's wealth is stored up for the righteous."

O, that multiplied thousands of the children of God could begin THIS YEAR of 2007 to inherit these promises in their lives, and sow the seeds of righteousness into their children's lives!

The second promise of this powerful Psalm, found in verse 3, is that WEALTH and RICHES are in the house of the man who fears God and finds great delight in His commands! What a promise! And how much greater number of God's people need to appropriate this promise into their lives in these last days when the funding of the purposes and plans of God requires such a superabundance of just that — wealth and riches. But our discussion of that promise will have to wait until the next edition. In the next post I will share more of what the Lord has shown me through this powerful Psalm and its application in our lives.

Visit Our Website
If you have not been to the website in a while, be sure you visit and check out the articles in the Prophetic Perspective and the Real Truth Digest.

There's also a new book I wrote, Dunamis! Power From On High!, which is all about the mighty power available to every believer through the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

A New Breed Of Preacher

-by Greg Gordon

A New Movement of Fearless Uncompromising Preachers
God is raising up a new breed of preachers in our day. People are sick of modern-day soft preaching that does not move our consciences anymore then a worldly movie would. God is going to raise them up, they will not be bred in modern day seminaries or bible colleges. They will speak against the whole system that is raising anemic preachers and teachers. Their messages will be bold, strong, pointed; it will offend many but save many. Their preaching will bear witness to their calling. God will be in their messages and the fear of God will come with their message. God has always been faithful to have a voice in every generation. Surely we find ourselves in a time as the Psalmist lamented: "There is no more any prophet, neither is there among us, any that knoweth how long." Yet they will come! They will come with messages that will sear our consciences, Oh how we need a modern day prophet!

Will the modern day prophet agree with all the theology and comfort of American Christianity? No, his message will so contradict all of what we know of Christianity that we will hardly believe he is from God. Jeremiah was a prophet that heard from God and he prophesied: "behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them." These new breed of preachers will be men that are shut-in with God and hear from him and their words will be as "fire" and the people "wood."

D.M. McIntyre spoke of this same heavenly principle: "Before the great revival in Gallneukirchen broke out, Martin Boos spent hours and days and often nights in lonely agonies of intercession. Afterwards, when he preached, his words were as flame, and the hearts of the people as grass." Oh these men will be "much with God" and "little with men." The things of earth to them will grow strangely dim. They will be strange men to the ways and systems of the world. They will speak against the hypocrisy in the pews and the hirelings in the pulpits. The fear of man will not have any hold on these men, the holy fear of God will be their overwhelming vision. They will speak the "word of the Lord" in due season and not refrain from being a mouthpiece in the hand of the Lord.

PROPHETIC Preaching
A.W. Tozer spoke of this new breed of preachers in his short article 'prophetic preaching' — this is the need of our day and it will come:

If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be by other means than any now being used. If the Church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher.

The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting. Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many), he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom.

Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the One and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath. This is only to say that we need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to the Church. And it is my belief that the one gift we need most now is the gift of prophecy.

Uncompromised, unsettled, unyielding, unmovable, unshakable! These men will come with unbelievable message to those steeped in unbelief. David Wilkerson said once, "only praying men touch God." These men will be 'men of God' that touch God and hear from Him. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Joel, Hosea, Zechariah, these men will find good company with the coming prophets. They will be fully accepted of God and fully rejected by men. God will call them 'blessed' and men will call them 'cursed.'

Picture Of A Prophet
Leonard Ravenhill in his book "America is too young to die" speaks of the true picture of the coming prophets to Christendom. Oh how sorely we need them:

The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men. The group challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology are not likely to vote him 'man of the year' when he refers to them as habituates of the 'synagogue of Satan!'

He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! He has not price tags. He is totally 'otherworldly.' "He lives in the heights with God and comes into the valley with a 'thus saith the Lord.' He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow. He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead! He walks before men for days, but has walked before God for years.

He announces, pronounces, and denounces! God talks to him about men. He talks to men about God. There is a terrible vacuum in Evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. the man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist. Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant churchianity. Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle. Let him, too, say and live, 'This one thing I do.' Let him reject ecclesiastical favors. Lim him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous, nonself-glorifying.

Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself, but only that which will move men to God. Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the day. Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism.

Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon. God have mercy; send us PROPHETS! [Read Full Article]

Run For Your Life!
The message of these men will seem strong and extreme to most. They will call for utter immediate implicit obedience to the commands of the Lord. They will call for a turning away from sin and from sinful practices. They will preach a God-exalting and men-abasing message. They will not be worried about men's self-esteem or happiness but rather their clarion cry will be: "Holiness Unto the Lord!"

Their message might sound like this excerpt of a message preached by Carter Conlon:

Run from gospels that focus on your success and prosperity. Run from those that use the name of Jesus Christ only for personal gain. Run from those that are picking your pocket in the name of Jesus. Run! Run from gospels that focus only on self-improvement, or on three steps to a better personality. Run from churches where men and not Christ are glorified. Run, get out of that place! Run from churches in America and Canada where there is no Bible, no cross, no searching Word, no repentance from sin. Run when there's no mention of the blood of Jesus. It's an unclean place, so run! Run from churches where the worship leaves you cold, where there's no sense of God's presence, because they don't know God. Run! Run from churches where you're comfortable in your sin. If you enter God's house with sin in your life, but you're not convicted of it, you're sitting at a table of devils. Run! Run from pulpits that are filled with politically driven men who use the pulpit of God for a personal agenda. Run! Run from those who preach division between races and cultures. Run! Run! Get out! Turn it off. They know nothing of God. Run from ungodly, spasmodic movements and endless empty prophesying. Beloved Church. Run for your life! Run from preachers that stand, who tell only stories and jokes. Run like you've never run before. Run from those that are only after money and they use one gimmick after another to get your money. One foolish thing after another to get your money. Run!"

God is going to get the attention of us. He is going to shake "everything that can be shaken." We should be on our face brothers and sisters. Great times of shaking are coming. Are we standing firm on truth of God or are we allowing the world and its cares to choke our spiritual life? God is going to raise up a new modern breed of preachers that will be uncompromising and unrelenting in their proclamation of the heart of God.

Hear this blunt blaring word from the late Dr. Joseph Parker:

Oh, ye white-faced, weak-kneed believers! Believers in what? Ye shifty speculators, stealers of prophetic mantles! go, drink yourselves to death, and go to your proper devil! Ye are not the Church of Christ, might well be the speech which ascended Pauls might deliver to us, as we reshuffle the theological cards, and rearrange our credenda, and modify and dilute our doctrinal positions and enthusiasms.

Let us also hear one of Mr. Ravenhill's often quoted lines: "Our pulpits today are occupied with puppets rather than with prophets, with organizers rather than with agonizers." Does that smite? It is true! Let us start praying to see God revive, restore, renew and revolutionize the Church as we know it. We need a mighty touch of God's Spirit and men that will speak with that anointing from heaven. God is raising a new breed of preachers in these last days. Oh how we need them!

-SOURCE: www.sermonindex.net

“The Former Things Have Come to Pass”

(This post is the second part of the series, Now I Declare New Things! )

Isaiah 42:9
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.

Isaiah 43:18,19
Do not call to mind the former things,
Or ponder things of the past.
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.

There are two vital truths we need to extract from these passages of Scripture regarding "the former things." The first and most obvious is that the things that used to be, "the things of the past," are now completed and are now passed. That is to say, they are history. In speaking of someone who has died, we use the euphemism that they “passed away.” That is precisely how God wants us to regard the modus operandi, or ways of operating or doing things, that are of the past — as “the former things” — particularly at those junctures when He begins announcing, “Now I declare new things! Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth!” And this can apply either to individual believers or the collective church. God is at those times acting as a spiritual attending physician, pronouncing "the former things" dead, deceased. Yet, at the same time He is also acting as a spiritual obstetrician, delivering the newborn, "the new thing" that God is birthing, which will replace the former or passe' thing.

Simultaneously, at that juncture, we have the stark dichotomy of the lifeless corpse of the deceased, whose heart has ceased to pump the warm blood of life, and has already begun to grow cold and to undergo the death and decay process, and at the same time we have the vibrant embodiment of new hope and all the effects of new life surging through the veins and arteries of the newborn, the new thing. The new thing has indeed sprung forth and we cannot help but be aware of it. Its cries and whines demanding our attention ensure that we are aware of it.

The only thing we can do with the deceased at that point is embalm and bury it. Otherwise, all we’d be doing is propping up a lifeless corpse merely for appearance sake or for the sake of our emotional well-being. Soon, like it or not, we must come to grips with the cold reality that the former things have passed away — they’re dead, deceased, departed — and no matter how much we would wish it so, they are not going to be revived. We must begin to grasp and deal with the immutable fact that they're simply not coming back. Their span of existence on this earth, whether it be "the former things" — scenarios, circumstances, methods, paradigms — or people we've known or loved has concluded.

As all of us who knew and loved my Dad, Larry Lambert, had to do in the aftermath of his Homegoing last June, somehow, when the last note of life has been played, we must all come to deal with the truth that, in the here and now, cessation of life is an integral and inextricable part of life. We must hearken unto and take solace in the Divine Wisdom that —

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven — a time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted...a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. (Ecc. 3:1-4)

God is now saying to many maturing believers, "The former things have come to pass, and have indeed passed. The new things that have come are a passageway of promotion unto a higher dimension of the Spirit into which I am leading you."

At some point, the sooner the better, like David with the loss of his infant son, when cessation of life has come, we must cease mourning over the deceased, wash our face, and rejoice in the God of Life who always gives a Solomon, in one form or another, to replace the deceased. I and my mother and surviving siblings personally experienced such Divine consolation in my reunion, seemingly "out of the clear blue," with my daughter thirty-three days before my Dad's Graduation. Dad and grand-daughter never met in person before Dad's passing, but they were united in and by the commonality of the indwelling and enveloping Holy Spirit. What solace God in His abundant mercy has brought me! He gave me my Solomon.

Then, when death has come, when the last trump has sounded, we must allow death to be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:55)! It's only a cessation of life in this here and now temporal realm, but not in the there and then eternal realm, for in that realm there is no death, but only life eternal; there is no sorrow or mourning, but only joy and celebration; there is no crying or pain, but only laughter and peace. So when the passing from the temporal to the eternal has transpired with finality, we must commit our attention and energy to the newborn, the "new thing," that has been birthed and is alive and has not departed but is present, for it is now our progeny, our seed, the means God has ordained for producing our future posterity. At that point, there really is no choice; life cannot be produced by the dead. Only living things can engender living things. Dead things — that which has passed away, passe' things — cannot produce anything, for they are impotent, barren, lifeless.

Whenever God takes you into a new thing, there’s always an old thing to leave behind — an entire set of circumstances and settings, trappings, systems, models, methods — that have exhausted their usefulness, are now outmoded and obsolete, and will not be useful in the new thing, i.e., the new phase, the new paradigm, the new dimension.

Unfortunately, sometimes that which must be left behind also includes people, relationships. Some just will not or cannot make the trip, for various reasons. In some cases it is necessary for us, the person moving on, because we need a new and different kind of provision in the new phase, that those old relationships simply cannot provide, and sometimes it is because WE are a new provision to the new relationships that are formed in the new phase. Yet other times it is because of issues in the lives of the former phase people that prevent them from properly relating to us in the new phase. But, unfortunately, parting company with people who are incongruous and inharmonious with the new phase God is taking you into is part of the process of pursuit of God and His plans and purposes. Moving into new dimensions, of necessity, always entails the founding and forging of new relationships, and a forgetting of what lies behind in order to reach forward to what lies ahead (Plp. 3:13), particularly in the case of those things that lie behind that are entirely incompatible with and therefore adverse to the things that lie ahead, i.e., the new dimension into which we are transitioning.

Notice the associating of the word “now” with the word “new” in all these passages in which God is speaking about declaring and doing new things. This is the part people commonly neglect to recognize. When God decrees something new into effect, unlike other matters especially in personal prophecy over individuals, He always intends it to be “effective immediately!” And, indeed, in the realm of the spirit, it IS effective immediately when He decrees, declares, proclaims, speaks it! Certainly, He is demanding that we behold it, see it, look at it, give our attention to it, immediately. In the Isaiah 43 passage, He reinforces that truth with the Divine inquiry, “Will you not be aware of it?” What God wants us to understand from these passages is that beholding, giving our attention to, acknowledging, pursuing, walking in the new thing that springs forth with God’s declaration and proclamation is not optional, but mandatory, compulsory. If we are to continue our pursuit toward Him, being conformed into His Image, being transformed from glory to glory into the glory of His Image (2 Cor. 3:18), and walking in intimacy in His manifest presence (glory), and if we are to position ourselves in the “place” where His favor and provision is being poured out, we must walk in the new thing that He has decreed.

That is what He means when He follows up the 18th verse of Isaiah 48 with what He says in the 19th verse: “I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.” Wildernesses and desert experiences almost always precede a “new thing” God is about to do in our inidividual lives or the collective Church. But, eventually in those seemingly aimless wanderings in the spiritual wilderness and slow trudgings through dry spiritual deserts, when mentally we know He is with us but our soul is parched and thirsting for a fresh infusion of the Water of the Spirit, He makes a roadway in the wilderness where roadways do not normally exist and a river in the desert where rivers do not normally exist that leads to His Precious Presence. But, at that moment—when the roadway in the wilderness or the river in the desert appears—we are in a dilemma, a fork-in-the-road crisis! For, now the pathway has been illuminated—by the lamp unto our feet and light unto our path—and now we must choose, either to follow the illuminated pathway toward God and the next juncture He has ordained for our life, or stay on the path we’ve been traveling and remain in the familiar and friendly surroundings of the wilderness or desert we’ve been sojourning in, continuing to reap the same results we've been reaping! All the while we are neglecting to walk into the new thing, the blessings it holds are held in abeyance.

The second, somewhat more obscure, meaning we need to draw from God’s declaration, “The former things have come to pass,” is that the reason that the former things came in the first place is so that they can in time pass. That is, they have come in order to pass. It is vital for people who are intrinsically resistant to change and set in their ways to understand that many circumstances and situations in life that develop were never intended by God to be permanent, but have come in order to one day pass. Generally, we are more amenable to that aphormism when it involves the passing of things that are not so good, and especially things that are bad. But, what we need to understand is that it is also true in the case of what we consider "good things."

The saying, “All good things must come to an end,” is more apropos than we realize or want to acknowledge. Human nature does not want “good things” to end. But, sometimes that is the will of God. Sometimes the good, especially the good with which we have become comfortable and are comforted by, is the thief of the better or best. Thus, sometimes good things must come to an end in order that we can advance into better things. Oftentimes the ending of good things is actually a precursor or pathway to promotion. Often what appears to be grevious is in reality graduation, and what appears to be trouble is in reality transition to a better place or higher dimension. We must be willing to let go of the status quo to move into the place in the Spirit where God wants to take us.

“This too shall pass!” is a concept that can carry great consolation, encouragement, and hope when we are traversing through trials, troubles, and tribulations. Just knowing that everything in this life eventually passes can be a source of great strength and assurance. It is inevitable that our journey of pursuit of God will take us through “high water,” so that we can come to know the God who is a strong tower that the righteous run into in the time of trouble. Sometimes it is our own Sea of Galilee raging storm experiences, so that we, like the Apostles of the Lamb, can experientially know the Omnipotent Jesus who has the power to calm the raging storm with a two-word command: "Be Still!" Or, a Red Sea experience to introduce us to Jesus the Deliverer that Moses and the Israelites met following their deliverance from Egypt. Primarily, these kinds of crises come into our lives to drive us closer to God, to force us to come to know Him and His power and provision in a new, more spiritually advanced, dimension.

Virtually every set of circumstances and scenarios we traverse through in our own trek through the wildernesses of life toward God and His Kingdom are merely temporary. Usually they happen for our teaching, training, and testing in preparation for further spiritual advancement along the continuum of being conformed into the Image of Christ and being transformed from glory to glory. Not recognizing this is a source of needless despair and despondency for individual believers.

Moreover, one of the most problematic tendencies of Christians is to set as permanent what God intends to be only passing. It is the spirit of religion that engenders that kind of misjudgment and misunderstanding of events and circumstances. A characteristic of religiosity is obsession with preserving the past — what once happened, what God did in another era, and the status quo — rather than “press(ing) on,” a la Philippians 3:14, to possess as our present possession what God is doing today in our midst. The attitude God's Word prescribes that we have is: “THIS is the day (today) that the Lord has made; I will be glad and rejoice in IT!” In fact, Paul said that in order to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” we must “(forget) what lies behind and reach forward to what lies ahead!” If Christians acted as if God is truly the “I AM,” contrasted to the “I WAS,” our personal lives as well as our churches would be a whole lot different than they are!

The various phases of our journey are only temporary, but rarely, especially at the intrusive inception of adverse circumstances — times of trouble, trial, tribulation, and temptation to despair — do we perceive them as such. Indeed, one of the most effective weapons the enemy of our souls has in his arsenal to use against us is discouragement and despair. Whenever adversity hits our lives, our first reaction typically is to despair and become discouraged, because we presume it is here to stay and defeat us, instead of something that has come to be overcome and to pass, “for in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37, KJV).

Often, our first reaction to trouble is to be highly offended. It’s as if we say, “What is this?! How dare you come into my life! Don’t you know who I am?” Well, the truth of the matter is that Satan brings these things into our lives and God allows him to bring them into our lives because they both — God and Satan — DO know who we are! Satan authors it to test our mettle; God allows it to prove our mettle through Him and Him through us. Difficulties come into our lives so that we can advance into the dimension in which we indeed are "MORE THAN conquerors" by appropriating the powers of Him who loved us and overwhelmingly CONQUERING those difficulties via His Power and Might operating in and through us (cf., Rom. 8:31-31)! Remember, God will not allow any temptation, test, trial, or trouble to beset us beyond what we are “able” — able not merely to withstand, but to overcome!

So, why does God make such a big deal about pondering and recalling passe matters, saying, "Behold, the former things have come to pass; do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past?" It is that we cannot possess as our present possession what God is doing now in this time — the dimension of His Power and Presence He is manifesting now in the present — from where we have been, what was, and through what has been previously; i.e., "the former things" that have come to pass! We can only possess as our present possession what God is manifesting now, at the present time, by forgetting the former things, by “not call(ing) to mind the former things," and by not “ponder(ing) things of the past,” in order that we can “Behold” (look at, gaze upon) and “be aware of” the new thing God is doing! In other words, we cannot operate in a new dimension until we leave the former dimension and move into it.

Passe' things (former things, things of the past) are dead things, things that have passed away. Living in passe', obsolete, outdated modes, methods, paradigms, and dimensions is living in the flesh realm, which is the realm of the dead, the lifeless, the deceased, being infused with death. It profits and produces nothing, Jesus said. He also said to let the dead bury the dead, the lifeless, the deceased. But, Spirit-led believers must separate themselves from the flesh realm and move on into the "Land of the Living" — the dimension where God lives and where all things are alive and living, being infused with the Zoe-Life of God.

God is now saying to many maturing believers, "The former things have come to pass, and have indeed passed. The new things that have come are a passageway of promotion unto a higher dimension of the Spirit into which I am leading you. Come and follow Me!"

"Now I Declare New Things"

Isaiah 42:9
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.

Isaiah 43:18,19
Do not call to mind the former things,
Or ponder things of the past.
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 48:6-8
I proclaim to you new things from this time,
Even hidden things which you have not known.
They are created now and not long ago;
And before today you have not heard them,
So that you will not say, `Behold, I knew them.'
You have not heard, you have not known.

The above Scriptures indicate so clearly that our Father God is a God of new things! When it comes to paradigms and patterns, the fact of the matter is humans tend to be much more conservative than God, including with respect to the status quo, and indeed are often resistant to the change God wants to bring about in various aspects of our lives. God is the God of new things! He is forever breaking the molds and casting new ones. In the arena of the establishment of His Kingdom on Earth, He is constantly declaring "new things" before they spring forth.

God speaks In these passages about “new things." In the first, He says, “I declare new things” and that He proclaims them to us before they spring forth, which means, before they come into existence, or before the new things He is about to initiate show up in our lives. In the second, He proclaims, “I will do something new” in our lives. Then, in the third passage He declares that He proclaims new things, even things that have been hidden from us previously of which we had no knowledge or understanding, and that they are created at the moment He proclaims them and that they were non-existent prior to that moment, so that we cannot boast that we knew anything about them or even heard about them prior to their coming into existence in our lives.

God speaks of new things repeatedly in His Word: new wine, new moons, new growth, new things, new strength, new song, new name, new heart, new spirit, new covenant, new tongues, new garment, new commandment, new creature, new self, new man, new and living way, new heavens and new earth, New Jerusalem—just to name the most salient. He not only talks about new things, but also, as alluded to previously, about re-newing things, meaning He takes old, obsolete, outdated, outmoded, passé things and somehow transforms them into new. Again, all this tells me that new things are God Things!

Thus, we can see from these and many other passages of Scripture that God specializes in new things! Declaring new things is something God does recurrently or repeatedly. Moreover, whenever God says, “I will” as He does in the second passage, we can safely deduce that whatever it is that He says He will do is indeed His will, since He never does anything contrary to His will. Thus, we can be assured that decreeing, doing, and bringing forth new things in our lives is within God’s will. The question is then: why are change and new things so contrary to our will as humans, generally speaking?

God specializes in declaring and doing new things! And, yet so many people specialize in old things or the status quo! God has an affinity for the new, and humans, by and large, have an aversion against it. In American culture especially, we venerate, if not idolatrize, the status quo. We like things to be as we have always known them to be in our lifetime. We dread and are threatened by the least prospect or semblance of change. We all but canonize the person who lived at the same house, woke up every morning at the same time, drank his morning cup of the same brand of coffee from the same coffee cup, made in the same pot, drove the same route to work and back to the same job, and ate the same few varieties of meals, on the same plates using the same silverware—for forty years! (Then, the irony of it all is that to that person who in his own world insisted on making time stand still, we pay tribute with the gift of a gold watch, as if he even has a need for a watch, since for him time already “is no more!”) Salt of the earth, grounded, good people, we call them. And, God help the preacher who dares to stand up before the congregation of the dying faithful and even suggest that something in the church needs to change or that it needs a transfusion with new blood.

We have almost a national obsession with preserving the memories of those and that which has passed, contemporaneous with such a barbaric contempt for the new that has yet to live that millions are unceremoniously murdered and their remains strewn about refuse landfills like discarded chicken parts and flushed through the sewers like human waste. We construct elaborate monuments to immortalize the dead. We spend billions of dollars on museums and such things as presidential libraries, Smithsonian Institutes, Halls of Fame of various genres to preserve memorabilia and memories of departed people and artifacts of passé cultures. Treasured “antiques” and venerated “historic” structures are valued many times higher than their modern counterparts. A plethora of books and magazines filling our national libraries and booksellers’ shelves are devoted exclusively to reminiscing nostalgically and longingly of days gone by, eras past. All this underscores our collective proclivity of living in the past.

God declares that He will shake everything that can be shaken, as of created things, in order that only those things that cannot be shaken shall remain (Heb. 12:25-29). Yet, people shake in terror at the mere thought of those things that can be shaken being removed and the treasured status quo changing!

Why is that? Two words, insecurity and idolatry! We make huge investments in the status quo. We are vested in what has been, what has already transpired, rather than in what will be and what is becoming. Without even realizing it, our security, our hope, our faith, all become wrapped up in the status quo—our own world we have worked so hard to create. It gets to the place, though few ever see it, where we are trusting in that status quo— the world we have been the creator of—rather than God, the true Creator! It takes little thought to see that that is the very essence of idolatry. Only the deity we are exulting is not some wooden or stone object representing some strange, mythological false god, as do the heathen of foreign lands, but rather it is ourselves, as the "creator" of the world we have fashioned and which we are venerating. So, the form of our idolatry is literally that of self-deification.

And, then along comes God, and says, “Behold, I will do a new thing!” Talk about shock and awe! Such a concept just does not compute or comport with our thinking and our ways. “A new thing?!” Wait a minute! Doesn’t that mean change? Change?! “New?!” Instinctively, subliminally, we know the inference of the word “new” is that what has been is now old, outdated, outmoded, worn-out, obsolete, uneffectual, passé, and has passed away. How can that possibly be? we ask. And, even more pressing, “Then, what now?!”

The Kingdom of God is replete with paradoxes. Give to get, sow to reap, die to live, lose to gain, all of these concepts on the surface seem contradictory, but in God’s Kingdom the seeming paradox produces the desired provision. Such is the case as well regarding the dreaded “C” word — CHANGE — the mere mention of which causes angst, anxiety, and apprehension to course through the veins of many people, and triggers tangible tremors of trepidation, repulsion, and resistance, through most congregations of professed “believers.” Most people recoil from and are repulsed by the very concept of change. Yet change is what the Kingdom of God is all about. Ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, change has been required for remedy, recovery, restoration, and renewal. Human nature detests change; Divine nature relishes it. While God emphatically declares His own personal unchangeableness with regard to His Nature, “I, the Lord, do not change!” (Mal. 3:6) nevertheless, the Kingdom of God is all about change—bringing forth into existence “new” things, renewal, restoration, or returning things to their original, pristine state.

In this hour, God is declaring, decreeing, proclaiming, doing new things—in individuals lives, families, in the church, and in the world. The old things, the status quo, are simply not going to be effective or productive anymore. Where you've been and where you are now is not where you're going. And you're going to have to be willing to leave behind the familiar and friendly in order to lay hold of your future, your destiny. Your destiny is not in your past or even your present, but in your future. To apprehend your destiny, you must let go of and cease striving to preserve all that is comfortable and comforting—the known—and embrace the new and the unknown thing God is doing in your life. It's new to you, but not to God, for with God there's nothing new under the sun (Ecc. 1:9,10). It's unknown to you, but it's always been known by God, for He is omniscient.

If change has come to your life or is in the offing, there is nothing to fear! You are simply experiencing transition—the place between the promise and the Promise Land. Sure, change instrinsically entails upheaval, turmoil, and feelings of disorientation, but as FDR so eloquently said in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself!" And fear is a spirit that you have authority and power over!

Remember: nothing can happen in your life unless God allows it. He is God; let Him lead and simply follow. As high as the heavens are above the earth so are His ways above our ways and His thoughts above our thoughts! Change often feels like trouble, but feelings are unreliable and will absolutely lie to you and decieve you. It's not really trouble, it's transition, to take you to a new dimension of the Spirit so that you can move closer to your destiny! God is simply moving you to higher ground, so that you can see the enemies and obstacles in your way that are/will attempt to deter, distract, and defeat you on your way to the Promise Land. "But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us," (Rom. 8:37) for we are "more than conquerors" (Ibid; NIV).

Beloved, we simply cannot go down for going up. We cannot go under for going over. We cannot lose for winning. I've read the end of the book, and guess what? WE WIN! The devil is already a defeated foe! He's just trying to intimidate and bully you to deceive you into believing he's winning. But, the fight is already over, the adversary was already KOed and is out on the mat, and the referee has already counted him out! Hallelujah! Raise your hands in victory and triumph, YOU ARE THE WINNER!

In the next post, we'll talk more about this matter of the new things God brings about in our lives, what times of transition are all about, and how to navigate through the tumultuous seas of change. Stay tuned!