Monday, December 21, 2015

A Rally Cry to the Bible and its Testimony

“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them”—Isaiah 8:20 KJV.

About a year and one month ago, on November 18, 2014, in “SMALL STRAWS IN A SOFT WIND” by Marsha Burns, she said, “In a vision I saw a man clearing the rubble from a brick wall that had been destroyed, and when I looked beyond the wall I saw a city in ruins and a few people working to clear the rubble.  And, I heard the Lord say, ‘This is a picture of the church, which has been ravaged and lies in ruins.  I call to the remnant to clean up the mess and rebuild according to My plumb line and standards.  It will be a great and lasting work.’”

I agree, as the Lord has been speaking to me of late—November 2014 timeframe—(out of Psalm 74) a similar message.  First the problem: “Turn Your footsteps toward the perpetual ruins; the enemy has damaged everything within the sanctuary.  Your adversaries have roared in the midst of Your meeting place; they have set up their own standards for signs.  It seems as if one had lifted up his axe in a forest of trees.  And now all its carved work they smash with hatchet and hammers.  They have burned Your sanctuary to the ground; they have defiled the dwelling place of Your name.  They said in their heart, ‘Let us completely subdue them.’  They have burned all the meeting places of God in the land” (Psalm 74:3-8 NASB).

Then the solution:  As Marsha Burns quoted at the end of the above word of hers: “Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up”—Hosea 6:1.  Also, in Psalm 60, after Israel had suffered “very hard” things, and had been broken in upon deeply by the enemy (but at the Lord’s behest), the army of the Lord had to regroup.  And a retreat to a rally point—a military strategy that looks like surrender and defeat—but is really just a regrouping and re-strategizing to come at the war differently and more effectively (and usually with less numbers and supplies like a remnant with little resources).  Sound familiar?  Such is the case today.  The Lord accentuated this verse to me the other day: “But you have given us a banner to rally to; all who love truth will rally to it; THEN you can deliver your beloved people” (Psalm 60:4-5 TLB).

The banner to rally to is the unadulterated Word of God and its proper—and dare I say—its traditional and established interpretation.  Then...and only then...CAN God deliver His people.  He can’t now!  Not that God is powerless, but He cannot lie.  ONLY according to genuine Truth can He—and will He—deliver His people.  Arise army of God!  Set your ranks and files in line and column to the plumb-line of God’s Holy Word.  Returning to the Lord is returning to traditional Christianity.  He will heal us if we do.  If not, if we continue to consult the world and witches and rebellion (our own minds and heart’s desires), we are destined only to curse God in darkness.

But as for me and the remnant, “I will wait for the Lord to help us, though he is hiding now. My only hope is in him.  I and the children God has given me have symbolic names that reveal the plans of the Lord of heaven’s armies for his people: Isaiah means ‘Jehovah will save (his people),’ Shear-jashub means ‘A remnant shall return,’ and Maher-shalal-hash-baz means ‘Your enemies will soon be destroyed.’  So why are you trying to find out the future by consulting witches and mediums? Don’t listen to their whisperings and mutterings. Can the living find out the future from the dead? Why not ask your God?  ‘Check these witches’ words against the Word of God!’ he says. ‘If their messages are different than mine, it is because I have not sent them; for they have no light or truth in them.  My people will be led away captive, stumbling, weary and hungry. And because they are hungry, they will rave and shake their fists at heaven and curse their King and their God.  Wherever they look there will be trouble and anguish and dark despair. And they will be thrust out into the darkness’” (Isaiah 8:17-22 TLB).

***Update***

Today is December 21, 2015, and as Paul Harvey used to say, “Now for the rest of the story!”  God has, for some time now, at least from as far back as November 2014, been allowing the enemy to overrun His people.  But very recently (as of this past Sunday morning service [December 20, 2015]), I and a few others from the church group I meet with regularly, discerned a “change,” a “difference,” or a “turning point” in the spiritual atmosphere.  We are still trying to fully interpret exactly what God was/is saying, but in a nut shell, we believe it is about a restoration of the signs and wonders accompanying the truly apostolic expression of the gospel.  Only a true witness of the risen Christ can present the gospel in power, and assuredly, that same true witness is also someone perfectly aligned to the plumb line of God’s written word (in its 66 book Protestant format and in its inerrant form as originally written in the three languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek).

Like never before, I see an accentuation by God on Paul’s methodology.  Paul told the Corinthian church that “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but IN DEMONSTRATION OF THE SPIRIT AND OF POWER [emphasis mine], so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5).  Later, in the same letter, Paul says to them, “I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the words of those who are arrogant but their power.  For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.  What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a spirit of gentleness?” (1 Corinthians 4:19-21).

The “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” is only achieved by the God given authority derived from an apostolic anointing approved of by God, “a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15 Amp.).  Assuredly, “everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil” (Hebrews 5:13-14).

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