Published on January 22nd, 2009 | Articles, Guest Posts

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (New King James Version)
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.

In the beginning of all things, even before the creation of man at all, there was a condition in which all things that then existed were obedient to God. Angels were obedient to the Lord. But there came a time when angels themselves rebelled against the government of God. In Isaiah, Satan is spoken of as “Lucifer, son of the morning.” Again the Word says, in substance, concerning him, “Wast thou not pure and holy until pride was found in thine heart?” (See Isaiah 14:13-15, paraphrased)

Pride was the condition which, in the angel who was pure and holy, generated the desire to be separated from God and to rebel against Him.

It was the same pride, or desire to substitute his will for the will of God, which caused Adam to sin. From Adam, humanity has derived the same instinctive desire to insist on their way instead of God’s way. Through the continued exercise of the human will and the world’s way, the race has drifted into misty conceptions of the real will and the real way of God. This is particularly true in regard to the nature and substance of God.

It seems difficult to think of Him as a Being and a Substance. God is Spirit, but Spirit is a materiality. And God Himself is a materiality, a heavenly, not an earthly materiality. The forms of angels area substance, otherwise they would not be discernible. It is not an earthly substance or material, but a heavenly one.

As we think of the substance of which heavenly beings are composed and of which God Himself must necessarily be a composition, the mind settles on light and fire and spirit as a possibility.

Then the Word tells us that God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and man became a living soul. (See Genesis 2:7) There came a time when God made man. The Word tells us, “He made man’s body of the substance of the earth.” (Genesis 2:7, paraphrased) He made man, the Word says, “in his own image, in the image of God created he him”; (Genesis 1:27) not just in the form that God was, but God breathed into him His own self, His own being-that heavenly materiality of which God consists. He injected or breathed Himself into the man, and the man then became a composition of that heavenly substance or materiality and earth or the substance of the earth.

Adam was the created son of God. He was just like God. He was just as pure as God was pure. God fellowshipped with him. The Word of God tells us that God came down into the garden in the cool of the day and walked with Adam and talked with Adam. There was perfect fellowship between God and Adam. He was a sinless man. He could look right into the face of God, and his eyes and his spirit did not draw back. The purity of God did not startle him. He was just as pure as God was pure. That was the original man.

Man being composed of God – of heaven – of a heavenly materiality and his body of the earth, being a sovereign like God, being equal with God in sinlessness. God treating him on an equality and giving him dominion over the earth. Man was a reigning sovereign on the earth.

Everything, all conditions, spiritual and physical were subject to that God-man. The way of sin was this: that man chose to follow the inclinations of his earth-being, animal consciousness, or body instead of his God-man, God-being, or spirit. The result was that because of the suggestion of Satan there developed calls of the earth for the earthly. After awhile he partook of things earthly and became earthly himself. Therefore the fall of man was his fall into himself. He fell into his own earthly self, out of his heavenly estate, and the separation was absolute and complete.

God had said, “In the day that thou sinnest, thou shalt die.” (Genesis 2:17, paraphrased) That is, in the day thou sinnest, partaking of that which is earthy, the conditions of the earth being that of decay, the death process begins. So death reigneth from the time that sin came.

Sickness is incipient death. Death is the result of sin. There is no sickness in God. There never was, there never will be, there never can be. There was no sickness in man (in the God-man) until such time as he became the earth-man, until by the operation of will he sank into himself and became of the earth, earthy. Therefore, sin is the parent of sickness in that broad sense. Sickness is the result of sin. There could have been no sickness if there had been no sin.

Man, having fallen into that condition and being separated from God, needed a Redeemer. Redemption was a necessity because the Word says, “Ye must be born again.” (John 3:7) God had to provide a means of getting man back into the original condition in which he had once been. One man cannot save another because one man is of the earth, earthy even as another is, and man in the natural cannot save another. One cannot elevate another into a spiritual condition or put that one in a spiritual condition which is not in himself.

Thus it became necessary for God, in order to redeem the race, to provide a means of reuniting God and man. So Jesus was born, even as Adam had been made. He was begotten of God. He was born of God, but He partook of the tendencies of the natural life and received His natural, physical body through His mother, Mary. The Word of God speaks of the first Adam and the last Adam. (See I Corinthians 15:45) They were both Adams. They both came to produce a race. The first Adam had fallen and sinned. Therefore, the race that was produced through him was a race of sinful people with the same tendencies in their natures which were in his.

The last Adam, Jesus, had no sin. He had exactly the same privileges that the first Adam had. He could have sinned if He so chose. Jesus was a man in this world just as every man is. “He took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” (Hebrews 2:16) He did not take upon Him a heavenly condition. He took upon Himself the natural condition of the human family – fallen human nature.

But Jesus Christ triumphed over that condition of fallen human nature and did not sin, though the Word of God emphasizes that “[He] was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). The Word also says, “Having been tempted, he is able to succour (or to save, or deliver) them that are tempted, having himself been tempted even as we are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18, paraphrased). This is what makes Him a sympathetic Savior and Christ.

The purpose of Jesus in the world was to show us the Father. So Jesus came and committed Himself publicly at His baptism at the Jordan before all the world in these words, “unto all righteousness,” (Matthew 3:15, paraphrased) to do the will of God. He willed not to obey His own natural human will, but to do the will of the Father and to be wholly and solely and entirely obedient to the will of God. He declared, “I came… not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” (John 6:38)

When a Christian is born of God and becomes a real Christian, he is made a Christ-man. If the world wants to see Jesus, it must look upon the Christian who is the Christ-man, just as we who want to look upon the Father and understand Him look upon the man Jesus, who was the embodiment of the Father. Everything that Jesus did was the will and the Word of the Father. So everything the Christian does, if he is a real one, should be the will and Word of Jesus Christ. The Christian commits himself as entirely to the will of Jesus and becomes a Christ-man as Jesus committed Himself to the will of the Father and became a God-man.

A low standard of Christianity is responsible for all the shame and sin and wickedness in the world. Many Christians think it is all right if they pattern after Jesus in a sort-of way. They imitate Him and they do the things which He did; that is, they outwardly do them. They perform kind acts and they do other things which Jesus did. But the secret of Christianity is not in doing, the secret is in being. Real Christianity is in being a possessor of the nature of Jesus Christ. In other words, it is being Christ in character, Christ in demonstration, Christ in agency of transmission. When one gives himself to the Lord and becomes a child of God (a Christian) he is a Christ-man. All that he does and all that he says from that time on should be the will and the words and the doings of Jesus, just as absolutely, just as entirely as He spoke and did the will of the Father.

Jesus gave us the secret of how to live this kind of life. Jesus showed us that the only way to live this life was to commit oneself, as He did, to the will of God and not walk in his own ways at all, but walk in God’s ways. So the one who is going to be a Christ-man in the best sense and let the world see Jesus in him, must walk in all the ways of Jesus and follow Him. He must be a Christ-man, a Christian, or Christ-one.

Therefore, the things which possess the heart and which are unlike God fasten themselves because the inner being is not subject to the will of God. One of the reasons for this low standard of Christian living is the failure to recognize the trinity of our own being. Man is triune – body and soul and spirit just the same as God is triune, being Father and Son and Holy Ghost.

Salvation begins at the time when the spirit is surrendered to God, where the name is written in the Book of Life, and we receive the conscious knowledge of sins being forgiven. Then God witnesses to the spirit that our sins are blotted out. The Word, in the eighth of Romans, says, “His Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” (See Romans 8:16) That is, the testimony of the Spirit of God to our spirit is that we are the children of God when we surrender our spirits to God.

People wonder why, after having given their hearts to God and after having received a witness of the Spirit, they are troubled with evil desires and tempted in evil ways. The nature has three departments, and therefore, the surrender of the spirit to God is not all that He demands. God demands also the mind and the body.

The mind is the soul life; and it continues being of the earth, earthy, and doing earthy things until God does something, until we seek God for a new mind. It is similar to the change which occurs in the spirit, and the mind that formerly thought evil and that had wicked conceptions becomes as the mind of Christ.

The Church at large recognizes the salvation of the spirit. But they have not recognized the salvation of the mind from the power of sin, and that is why many Church people will say there is no such thing as sanctification.

There are Christian bodies that believe in the power of God to sanctify this mind, even as the spirit is saved. John Wesley, in defining sanctification, says that it is “Possessing the mind of Christ, and all the mind of Christ.” An individual with all the mind of Christ cannot have a thought that is not a Christ-thought, no more than a spirit fully surrendered to God could have evil within it.

In later years, as the revelation by the Spirit of God has gone on, man has begun to see that there is a deeper degree of salvation than these two. He is a triune being. As he needed salvation for the mind and spirit, so he has a body which needs to be transformed by God. The whole question of physical healing, the redemption of the body, the possible translation, the resurrection, are included there.

Christ is a Savior of the whole man – of spirit, of soul, of body. When Jesus at the Jordan committed Himself unto all righteousness to His Father, He committed His body just as He committed His mind and just as He committed His spirit. Christians have not been taught to commit their bodies to God, and therefore they feel justified in committing them to someone else, or something else, rather than to God.

Therefore, it is clear that in a whole salvation it is just as offensive to God to commit the body to the control of man as it would be to commit the spirit to man for salvation. Salvation for the spirit can only come through Jesus, through the blood of Christ, through receiving His Spirit. Salvation from natural thoughts and ways and the operation of the natural mind can only come through the natural mind being transformed into the mind of Christ. Salvation for the body is found in the same manner, by committing the body now and forever to God.

No one would think of sending to any other power than God for a remedy for the spirit. There is no spirit that one could go to, unless it is the spirit of the world or the spirit of the devil; and one goes not to either of these for the healing of the spirit or mind.

The real Christian is a separated man. He is separated forever unto God in all the departments of his life, and so his body and his soul and his spirit are forever committed to God. Therefore, from the day that he commits himself to God, he can go to no other power for help or healing, except to God. This is what gives such tremendous force to such Scriptures as this: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:5). Second Chronicles 16, relates that Asa, the king of Israel, who in the thirty and ninth year of his reign became diseased in his feet, and in his disease he trusted not the Lord but the physicians, and he died. Asa had been trusting God for many years by taking his little, insignificant army and delivering the great armies into his hand. But when he became diseased in his feet, he trusted not the Lord but the physicians, and that was the offense of Asa against God.” (See 2 Chronicles 16:12-13)

The impression I wish to leave is this: that an hundredfold consecration to God takes the individual forever out of the hands of all but God. This absolute consecration to God, this triune salvation, is the real secret of the successful Christian life.

When one trusts any department of his being to man he is weak in that respect and that part of his being is not committed to God. When we trust our minds (soul) and our bodies to man, two parts are out of the hands of God and there remains only our spirits in tune with heaven. It ought not to be so. The committing of the whole being to the will of God is the mind of God. Blessed be His name.

Such a commitment of the being to God puts one in the place where, just as God supplies health to the spirit and health to the soul, he trusts God to supply health to his body. Divine healing is the removal, by the power of God, of the disease that has come upon the body. But divine health is to live day by day and hour by hour in touch with God, so that the life of God flows into the body just as the life of God flows into the mind or flows into the spirit.

The Christian, the child of God, the Christ-man, who thus commits himself to God ought not to be a subject for healing. He is a subject of continuous, abiding health. And the secret of life in communion with God, the Spirit of God, is received into the being, into the soul, into the spirit.

The salvation of Jesus was a redemption of the whole man from all the power of sin, every whit – sin in the spirit, sin in the soul, sin in the body. If salvation or redemption is from the power of sin and every sin in our being, then the effect that sin produces in us must disappear and leave when the source is healed. Thus, instead of remaining sick, the Christian who commits his body to God becomes at once (through faith) the recipient of the life of God in his body.

Jesus gave us an example of how perfectly the Spirit of God radiates not only from the spirit or from the mind, but from the body also. The transfiguration was a demonstration of the Spirit of God from within the man radiating out through his person until the illumination radiated through his clothes, and his clothes became white and glistening, and his face shone as the light. It was the radiation of God through his flesh.

In a few instances, God permitted me to see Christians thus illuminated in a measure. I am acquainted with a brother in Chicago, whose face is illuminated all the time; there is a radiation from it. His countenance is never seen in a condition of depression or as if the pores of his flesh are closed. There is an unmistakable something that marks him as one through whom the Spirit of God radiates.

God radiated through the purified personality of Jesus so that even His very clothes became white and glistening. Christians are Christ-men and stand in the stead of Jesus. The Word of God says to the Christian and to the Church: “Ye are His body.” (See Ephesians 1:22-23 and Ephesians 5:29-30) The accumulated company of those who know

Jesus, who really have the God-life within, are the body of Christ in the world and through that body of Christ all the ministry of Jesus is operative.

The nine gifts of the Holy Ghost are the divine equipment of God by which the Church, His body, is forever to continue to do the works of Jesus. “To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another faith, to another the gifts of healing, to another working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the interpretation of tongues.” (1 Corinthians 12:8-10, paraphrased) All these gifts Jesus exercised during His earthly ministry. The people who exercise these gifts create another practical Christ -the Church which is His body, Christ being the head.

When this truth is seen, Christianity will be on a new-old basis. The illumination of God, the consciousness of our position in the world, the consciousness of our responsibility as the representatives of Christ, places upon us as Christ-men and Christ-women the burden of Christ for a lost world. Of necessity, this lifts the heart and spirit into a new contact with God and the consciousness that if a son of God, if a Christ-man to the world, then one must be worthy of his Christ. The only way to be worthy is to be in the will of Jesus.

Men have mystified the Gospel; they have philosophized the Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus is as simple as can be. As God lived in the body and operated through the man Jesus so the man on the throne, Jesus, operates through His body, the Church, in the world. Even as Jesus Himself was the representative of God the Father, so also the Church is the representative of Christ. As Jesus yielded Himself unto all righteousness, so the Church should yield herself to do the will of Christ.

“These signs shall follow them that believe” (Mark 16:17) – not the preacher or the elder or the priest, but the believer. The believer shall speak in new tongues, the believer shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. The believer is the body of Christ in the world. The Word says, “There shall be saviors in Zion.” (Obadiah 1:21, paraphrased) As Jesus took us and lifted us up to the Father, and as He takes the Church and lifts it to the Father and gave Himself to sanctify and cleanse it, so the (“real, sanctified”-TP) Christian takes the world and lifts it up to the Christ, to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” (See Ephesians 5:25-26 and John 1:29)

The wonderful simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus is itself a marvel. The wonder is that men have not understood always the whole process of salvation. How was it that men mystified it? Why is it that we have not lived a better life? Because our eyes were dim and we did not see and we did not realize that God left us here in this world to demonstrate Him, even as the Father left Jesus in the world to demonstrate the Father.

The man with Christ in him, the Holy Ghost, is greater than any other power in the world. All other natural and evil powers are less than God; even Satan himself is a lesser power. Man with God in him is greater than Satan. That is the reason that God says to the believer, he shall cast out devils. (See Mark 16:17) “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) The Christian, therefore, is a ruler; he is in the place of dominion, the place of authority, even as Jesus was.

Jesus, knowing that all power had been given unto Him, took a basin and a towel and washed His disciples’ feet. His power did not exalt Him. It made Him the humblest of all men. So the more a Christian possesses, the more of a servant he will be. God is the great servant of the world. The One who continually gives to men the necessity of the hour. Through His guidance and direction of the laws of the world, He provides for all the needs of mankind. He is the Great Servant of the world, the greatest of all servants.

Yea, Jesus, knowing that all power had been committed to Him, and as God gave the power to Jesus, so Jesus commits through the Holy Ghost, by His own Spirit, all power to man.

I tell you, beloved, it is not necessary for people to be dominated by evil, nor by evil spirits. Instead of being dominated, Christians should exercise dominion and control other forces. Even Satan has no power over them, only as they permit him to have. Jesus taught us to close the mind, to close the heart, to close the being against all that is evil; to live with an openness to God only, so that the sunlight of God shines in. The glory radiance of God shines in, but everything that is dark is shut out.

Jesus said: “Take heed therefore how ye hear,” (Luke 8:18) not what you hear. One cannot help what he hears, but he can take heed how he hears. When it is something offensive to the Spirit and the knowledge of God, shut the doors of the nature against it and it will not touch you. The Christian lives as God in the world, dominating sin, evil, sickness, bless God. I would to God, He would help us to so present Jesus in the true light, that this church and the Church that is in the world, the Christian Body, would be lifted up until they would realize their privilege in Christ Jesus. Bless God, it is coming.

By the God within we cast out or expel from the being that which is not God-like. If you find within your heart a thought of sin or selfishness, by the exercise of the Spirit of God within you, you cast that thing out as unworthy of a child of God and you put it away from you.

Beloved, so should we do with our bodies. So must we do when sickness or the suggestion of sickness is present with us. Cast it out as evil; it is not of God. Dominate it! Put it away! It is not honoring to Jesus Christ that sickness should possess us. We do not want disease. We want to be gods. Jesus said, “I said ye are gods.” (John 10:34) It is with the attitude of gods in the world that Jesus wants the Christian to live. Blessed be His name!

Evil is real. The devil is real. He was a real angel. Pride changed his nature. God is real. The operation of God within the heart changes the nature until we are new men in Christ Jesus, new creatures in Christ Jesus. The power of God, the Holy Ghost, is the Spirit of dominion. It makes one a god. It makes one not subject to the forces of the world or the flesh or the devil. These are under the Christian’s feet. John said, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” (John 3:2)

Beloved, God wants us to come, to stay, and to live in that abiding place which is the Christian’s estate. This is the heavenly place in Christ Jesus. This is the secret place of the most high. Bless God!

The Word of God gives us this key. It says, “That wicked one toucheth him not.” (1 John 5:18) When the Spirit of God radiated from the man, Jesus, I wonder how close it was possible for the evil spirit to come to Him? Do you not see that the Spirit of God is as destructive of evil as it is creative of good? It was impossible for the evil one to come near Him, and I feel sure Satan talked to Jesus from a safe distance.

It is the same with the Christian. It is not only in his spirit that he needs to be rid of sin, nor only in his soul that he is to be pure, it is God in the body that the individual needs for a well body. It is just God that he needs.

The complaint of the devil concerning Job was, “Hast not thou made an hedge about him?” (Job 1:10) He was not able to get through that hedge to touch the man. Don’t you know that the radiation of the Spirit of God around the Lord Jesus was His safeguard? The artists paint a halo around the head of Jesus. They might just as well put it around His hands, feet, body, because the radiation of the Spirit of God is from all the being.

Now the Spirit of God radiates from the Christian’s person because of the indwelling Holy Ghost and makes him impregnable to any touch or contact of evil forces. He is the subjective force himself. The Spirit of God radiates from him as long as his faith in God is active. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (17 James 4:7) “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8) “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world … even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4-5) The reason people become sick is the same reason that they become sinful. They surrender to the suggestion of the thing that is evil and it takes possession of the heart.

Sickness is just the same. There is no difference. The suggestion of oppression is presented, and becoming frightened, the disease secures a foothold. “In my name they (the believers) shall cast out devils.” (See Mark 16:17) The believer says, “In the name of Jesus Christ I refuse to have this thing.”

For 15 years God has let me move among all manner of contagious diseases, and I have never taken one of them. The devil could not make me take them. I have prayed with smallpox patients when the pustules would burst under the touch of my hands. I have gone home to my wife and babies and never carried contagion to them.I was in the “secret place of the most High.” (Psalm 91:1) Indeed, contact with diphtheria, smallpox, leprosy, and even bubonic plague and the whole range of diseases was part of my daily work in connection with the work of the Apostolic Church of South Africa.

`Behold,I give you power over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall in anywise hurt you.” (Luke 10:19, paraphrased) So the prayer of the apostle comes to us with a fresh understanding.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (New King James Version)
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.

CONSECRATION PRAYER

My God and Father, in Jesus’ name I come to Thee. Take me as I am. Make me what I ought to be in spirit, in soul, in body. Give me power to do right if I have wronged any, to repent, to confess, to restore. No matter what it costs, wash me in the blood of Jesus that I may now become Thy child and manifest Thee in a perfect spirit, a holy mind, a sickless body. – Amen.

Published on January 11th, 2009 | Articles, Guest Posts

This guest post comes to us from Paul Keith Davis at White Dove Ministries.

Restoring Desolate Heritages

By Paul Keith Davis

Interestingly, many of the most significant things that transpired in the last generation took place in desert regions. There were numerous important visitations and revelations given in the 1960′s in the Arizona desert with direct application to our present mandate.

We have a short season left in the desert but it will actually be a very good time for the righteous. Our grooming will be brought to completion and a new commissioning imparted to prepare us to apprehend our desolate heritage. It will be a time for the literal fulfillment of Isaiah 49:8 saying:

In a favorable time I have answered you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you; and I will keep you and give you for a covenant of the people, to restore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages.

The Lord has been holding us by the hand and watching over us in preparation to become a covenant to the people and a light to the nations in order to restore the land and cause the people to inherit the desolate heritages.

Stepping Stones To Fullness

Although it would be wonderful to prophesy that we will walk in the fullness of our inheritance over this next year, we believe it is more accurate to identify this as a season of finalization in preparation and also commissioning for the crossing over; Joshua was commissioned on this side of the river in anticipation of leadership for advancement.

In this next season many people will be commissioned with the “mantles” of others who have gone before us. There is presently an emphasis on honoring our spiritual fathers and mothers who provided leadership in the last great outpouring of God’s Spirit. They were pioneers who overcame great difficulties to manifest God’s Kingdom in their generation.

Although some experienced failures and made costly mistakes, the foundation they provided is our platform to launch the next major outpouring. This opens the door for the deposit of God’s Spirit they carried to be appropriated to individuals in this generation.

In our own ministry, we have been emphasizing the importance of honoring healing revivalist such as A. A. Allen, Alexander Dowie, John G. Lake, William Branham and others. Some of these have been the most dishonored individuals of the 20th century Church yet used most notably in soul winning and the miraculous. Our adversary has effectively attempted to neutralize the testimony of these individuals as forerunners by overly emphasizing their shortcomings and weaknesses. Even so, the Lord is allowing a body of people to recognize the pioneering influence these individuals conveyed in order to position us to carry forward the unfinished commissions.

Paying The Price

Spiritual gifts are the result of supernatural grace purchased at Calvary’s Cross. Nevertheless, personal spiritual maturity can be costly requiring that we buy from Him:

Gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. (Revelations 3:18)

It has always been the Lord’s intent that we progress from Glory to Glory, but unfortunately, the Church has historically failed in this responsibility. Children should always start on a higher plain than their parents. That is the entire biblical principle of heritage and inheritance. Proverbs 13:22 states:

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.

We are once again presented with an opportunity to apprehend our desolate heritages and appropriate them to our generation. Mantles of revelation and power that were introduced in prior generations are accessible. We must pay whatever price is necessary to achieve this place in God. The important aspects of this revelation are to highlight the “open door” opportunity set before us for this purpose.

The Lord has clearly demonstrated through these revelations that individuals will be visited by His spirit over this next season for the purpose of “mantle” impartation. Many of the people soon to emerge in leadership are not presently known or recognized in broad public forums. Nevertheless, they are known in Heaven and have been prepared to carry notable deposits of revelation and power.

Therefore, this prophetic promise is to initiate our desperation to contend for this heritage. Our council is to position ourselves before Him so that His Spirit can be released to us in much the same way that Elisha captured the anointing that rested upon Elijah.

Recently the Lord gave me a revelation that dealt with our desolate heritage. In the experience, I found myself in a desert and mountainous region excavating an archeological site in hopes of finding treasures of great value. As I did I uncovered ancient books containing revelations that were started by leaders of the past that are to be finished in our day. I considered these books of greater value than gold or silver. Some were older than others but I knew this would be the completion of all mandates, commissions and promises.

This revelation speaks of our opportunity and responsibility to carry forward the task initiated by individuals of the former generation. Even as Joshua completed the commission of Moses so also will we facilitate the fullness of unfulfilled promises.

Lovingkindness And Truth To Awaken His Glory

The desert is a place of visitation and impartation to be established in lovingkindness and truth. Psalms 57:7-11 states:

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises! Awake, my glory! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your lovingkindness is great to the heavens and your truth to the clouds. Be exalted above the heavens, O God; Let Your glory be above all the earth.

Our present opportunity is to embrace this final segment of our desert experience to be fully prepared for what is to come. The Shekinah glory descended upon the Tent of Meetings and Moses was granted the privilege of meeting with God face-to-face for an extended period of time. Although Israel was not yet in the Promised Land they remained in the desert in order to prepare them to occupy the land of promise. So shall it be in this day. This coming season will be a time of visitation and tokens of God’s glory manifested among the righteous.

The righteous will bear the glory; there will be tokens of God’s glory resting upon a body of people that will illuminate them to shine like the sun in the Kingdom of our Father.

Realms Of Glory

Corporate meetings will experience realms of glory on a level we have not yet experienced in this generation.

We are entering the season of human history prophesied by Isaiah when he foretold there would be a Heavenly brightness shining upon the righteous in the midst of great darkness. It is by the Spirit of Truth that we will be illuminated as we share in the mysteries of the Kingdom reserved for this hour. Isaiah 60:1-3 declared:

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

There is a “weighty” presence or Glory that the Lord intends to place upon His people during these last days as a testimony to the nations of His redemptive virtue. It is truly amazing that sinners saved by grace can be endowed with this commission and responsibility. As Daniel prophesied, “many will be purged, purified, and refined… and those who have insight will understand.” (Daniel 12:10)

The understanding this company possesses will be the mystery of “Christ in us, the hope of Glory.” It is only through this refining process that we are capable of manifesting His Glory in the earth without it destroying us. If we have the understanding that the process we have been in is for preparation then it gives us the hope of our calling. Without that understanding we would be prone to discouragement, hopelessness and feelings of disqualification.

Another purpose for highlighting this reality is to equip the prayer and intercessory ministries with a key to unlocking this 21st century provision. It will be through prayer, praise, and prophetic proclamation that we will contend for this reality. It will not be accomplished through human soulish striving but by a revelation of the Spirit and the activation of our faith to speak in agreement with God’s plans. As recorded in Job 22:26-28:

For then you will delight in the Almighty and lift up your face to God. You will pray to Him, and He will hear you; and you will pay your vows. You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; and light will shine on your ways.

The end result of this expression of God’s Glory will be a notable harvest of souls beyond anything we have presently experienced in modern Church history. It will not only be a message to our nation but also the nations of the earth; nor will it be administered or controlled by human agency, but by the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

The Glory Separates

Korah’s rebellion was judged by God’s glory. Numbers 16:19 21 outlines that:

Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the LORD appeared to all the congregation. Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them instantly.”

In the same way that Korah’s rebellion was judged by God’s glory, so also will the seeds of rebellion be separated from within us as individuals and a corporate body! Only from this place are we able to separate the clean from the unclean.

The stress and turmoil in the world will continually increase as this present age reaches its completion and the Lord’s Kingdom is prepared to be revealed. The confrontation between light and darkness will also escalate as evil will become greater. Likewise, the children of light must respond to offer hope and salvation through the Lord’s redemptive work.

I recently saw this escalation in a revelatory encounter. In it I saw a door being opened from the bowels of hell releasing a horde of evil spirits of a profound nature. I was actually able to recognize the characteristics of some of them. One had an appearance like Adolf Hitler and another like Joseph Stalin. I believe these represented evil spirits that functioned through these historical tyrants.

I watched as these evil spirits began to manifest themselves before people and train the individuals to walk in realms of darkness and evil never before seen in our generation. It was as if individuals were being identified and equipped to carry “mantles” of darkness as foretold by ancient prophets concerning the latter days.

While this was taking place I heard an audible voice say, “The children of Light must respond in like fashion.” With that admonition, I saw angels descending from Heaven that were specially prepared for the end-time confrontation. They too were commissioned to meet with individuals through angelic visitations in order to train the people to walk in mantles of revelation and power.

Light Verses Darkness

The Lord’s Kingdom that is characterized with righteousness, peace, and joy will become more pronounced within an overcoming body of believers while darkness runs a parallel course of acceleration. While we are in this world we are admonished not to be a part of this world’s spirit. Light shines brightest during times of exceeding darkness!

Those who have yielded themselves to the work of God’s Spirit will be developed in righteousness and:

Will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! — Matthew 13:43

The last few hundred years of Church history has seen numerous expressions of spiritual “breakthrough” that changed every following generation. God used Martin Luther with a breakthrough anointing to re-establish the reality that the just shall live by faith.

Following Luther, John Wesley and others advanced further with the message of sanctification and a breakthrough anointing that altered present understanding of the Christian life. We then experienced another breakthrough during the days of William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street outpouring; following that came yet another during the days of William Branham and the Latter Rain outpouring.

Presently, we stand on the brink of the most significant breakthrough of all leading to the manifestation of a body of believers who function as sons and daughters of God and do the works that He did. This will be the only antidote for the darkness and evil that will permeate the coming years. Our current admonition is to embrace our opportunity for preparation and qualification for this responsibility.

This generation will see the greatest demonstration of grace never experienced and every indication points to its imminent reality. This generation will come forth with shouts of “grace-grace.”

Vision For The Future

The Bible stresses that mankind will perish when there is a lack of true spiritual knowledge, and without a vision the people are unrestrained and without order. Therefore, the spirit of revelation is a prerequisite to cooperate with God in this last day functioning of His plans.

To each of us is given a measure of faith; therefore it requires spiritual vision for us to appropriate our faith towards the things that are of lasting spiritual value. The Lord is granting to us in this season fresh deposits of His revelatory anointing to provide clarity, insight and the true knowledge of Him. This will begin to sanctify us for the coming battle.

Recently I heard the Holy Spirit say, “You can see things as they appear or you can see them as they really are.” This admonition is challenging us to begin to see things from Heavens perspective; that was the experience granted Gehazi when Elisha prayed for his eyes to be opened. When the revelatory anointing was granted, Elisha’s servant saw the mountains filled with Heaven’s host that greatly outnumbered the enemy. Suddenly his perspective changed from fear to faith because of spiritual vision and seeing things from God’s point of view.

Leaders will become increasingly aware of this opportunity and find great grace to train and equip a body of people to live in Heaven’s revelatory realm. This also will go hand-in-hand with the functioning of the panel of judges who are being delegated to separate true prophetic utterance from the false.

There is an “occupying” anointing that is being distributed among us. It is one thing to experience breakthrough but altogether another to occupy where the enemy has been displaced. We must be prepared and mobilized with a plan of occupation when we address various cities and regions. We are given the authority and dominion to occupy the areas for which we have spiritual revelation. Jesus said:

When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, “I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes {along} seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first — Luke 11:24-26

This present season highlights the importance of formalizing a plan of occupation by mobilizing the body of Christ. Great grace will be given in this next season for training and equipping leaders who are not afraid to conquer and occupy the land for which they are given spiritual vision.

It is a sad reality to discover that many of the places that once experienced great spiritual victory have now become havens of darkness. Even so, our grace for this season is to take back that ground and remind the Lord of His promise stating:

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust, my great army which I sent among you. — Joel 2:25

Focus Ahead

In a recent dream, our friend Bob Jones was told, “Those who strictly observe past glory will have little expression of present glory because they are solely focused on something that is fading.”

For if that which was but passing and fading away came with splendor, how much more must that which remains and is permanent abide in glory and splendor! Since we have such [glorious] hope (such joyful and confident expectation), we speak very freely and openly and fearlessly. Nor [do we act] like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze upon the finish of the vanishing [splendor which had been upon it]. 14In fact, their minds were grown hard and calloused [they had become dull and had lost the power of understanding]; for until this present day, when the Old Testament (the old covenant) is being read, that same veil still lies [on their hearts], not being lifted [to reveal] that in Christ it is made void and done away. 2 Corinthians 3:11-14 (Amplified)

Those who observe the fading glory of days gone by do so strictly from a misguided perspective and will have no understanding of the things that are yet to take place. Though we build upon the foundation of things that have taken place in the past, we cannot remain exclusively driven by prior expressions of outpouring and revival. There is something new and fresh on the horizon that will be a continual unfolding of the divine attributes and glory of Heaven.

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty. We cannot allow ourselves to be content to have a retrospective point of view when the greatest glory is yet to come. The Spirit produces liberty and emancipation from the bondage of the past providing the hope of a glorious future in His rest. The Holy Spirit is currently at work equipping and supplying a body of people to live in freedom.

Focus On Light — Not Darkness

There is an admonition coming from the Lord highlighting our need to be more concentrated on the things that He is preparing to do rather than our adversary. Although there is merit in knowing the plans of the enemy in order to mobilize ourselves through prayer and intercession to overcome his plans, it remains imperative for us to set before us the promise of Heaven for this generation.

Our secular media has become a conduit to sow fear and intimidation into the hearts of people. Likewise, there are some misguided doomsday ministries who unfortunately overemphasize the darkness of this generation without giving adequate attention to the light that will also be delegated to a prepared and set apart people. Where darkness abounds, grace will much more abound.

The revelatory anointing resting upon God’s people will allow foresight into the coming darkness. However, it also permits insight into the deposit of virtue and glory to be unleashed in unprecedented measure. We cannot allow ourselves to become overly concentrated on the darkness but exuberant with anticipation of God’s greatness to be demonstrated. Light will always overcome darkness! We are living in a time of great darkness but our directive is to be concentrated on the Light. We are to arise and shine, for our Light has come.

Published on January 8th, 2009 | Articles, Guest Posts

This guest post comes to us from Graham Cooke at Graham Cooke Ministries.

The Timing Of God

Graham Cooke

Whenever we celebrate the beginning of a new year, we are given a natural opportunity to ponder the timing of God.

While much study and meditation has been done in recent years on interpreting prophecy, it is important to remember that God sometimes uses words to carry a different meaning in the spiritual than they normally do in the natural. For example, in Acts 2:1-4, we see how God defines the word “suddenly” differently than we do.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

When we hear the word “suddenly,” we naturally think, “now.” On the surface, Acts 2 seems to back that up—it seems like the Holy Spirit has been poured out in a completely spontaneous event. But behind the scenes, as anyone who studies Scripture will know, there was a significant time of preparation beforehand. The Spirit was not a surprise, as Jesus had promised several days earlier in Acts 1:5 that, “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Just before His ascension, Jesus told His followers to wait for the promise of the Father, and some of them had done just that.

Of the five hundred people who witnessed the resurrection, one hundred and twenty were in the Upper Room persevering until the Holy Spirit was poured out. God clearly doesn’t need everyone to be on the same page to do something wonderful. He just needs a company of people persevering. Like Gideon’s army being cut back to three hundred, God will use the people who are fully and truly committed to Him.

Prophecy is fulfilled according to God’s timetable and man’s preparation and placement. If we are not prepared by God’s hidden process, or in the right place, we will miss the timing of God. These early Christians were right before God, and their relationships were in order. When God’s timing came, and He found them ready and in one accord, He empowered them from on high. The world changed because of that prayer meeting. The word “suddenly” actually carried a significant, and successful, season of preparation with it.

We see a similar principle in Mark 4:26-29 And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows–how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Jesus spoke of an immediate harvest, but clearly there were a number of things that had to happen before it could occur. When we receive a prophetic word about harvest in a church, we must be prepared to walk through the process of growing that seed. The word very well could mean that we need to break up the hard ground in our own lives first—cracking the hardness of our hearts and learning to rely on both God and one another.

For a time, we may have to throw seeds out. Planting takes work and strategy. We can’t just sit around and expect something to grow if we haven’t planted it. We have to sow the seeds. Churches with prophecies of harvest ought to consider ways of investing themselves into the community. We have to get outside our doors, sharing the promise God has put upon us.

When a church asks me what they should do with a prophecy about harvest, I always suggest planting as many seeds over as wide a region as possible. We need a great planting to have a great harvest. We also have to find fertile ground and develop and train enough workers to do both the sowing and the reaping. Jesus’ “immediate” harvest actually took months of preparation behind the scene.