Rattling of the Bones: 2 blog posts of note

I have been away with the family. I have also been reading through some of the books in my recommended list. Some I have only skimmed before and am only now reading properly, others I am reading with great interest to see how I feel about them now.

In this blog I want to ignore these and recall a message by Alan Vincent to the church in Hazlemere, Bucks in the mid 70s. It was on the subject of the "rattling of the bones"in Ezekiel 37:7.

But first here are two outstanding blog posts of the last week or so.
The first from Jamie is an outstanding description of how grace works in our lives .
The second is from Terry Virgo on not forgetting the commands of scripture.

When I returned from RiverCamp (see link) Morris Cerullo had sent a brochure on the Names of God. John Paul Jackson has done a series on these names as have many teachers and preachers. When we receive the Holy Spirit at salvation and more so as He is released in our lives in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, unknowingly we find ourselves signed up to a Holy Spirit Training Course on the Names of God. This is the same course that the Israelites were on in the Wilderness after leaving Egypt.

• YHWH-Yireh (Jehovah-jireh) — "The Lord will provide" (Genesis 22:13-14).
• YHWH-Rapha — "The Lord that healeth" (Exodus 15:26).
• YHWH-Niss"i (Yahweh-Nissi) — "The Lord our Banner" (Exodus 17:8-15).
• YHWH-Shalom — "The Lord our Peace" (Judges 6:24).
• YHWH-Ra-ah — "The Lord my Shepherd" (Psalm 23:1).
• YHWH-Tsidkenu — "The Lord our Righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6).

• YHWH-Shammah (Jehovah-shammah) — "The Lord is present" (Ezekiel 48:35).

My purpose in mentioning these is to catch the spirit behind Jamie's post."We can simply let the Life of Christ within us do the walking and with each step see how our paths are made straight for us, one step at a time. "
But rattling alongside this is the substance of Terry Virgo's blog describing how God's ministries were sent in with apostolic commands and injunctions.
But I want to stress even more than Terry does various points.
Firstly...unlike today when we have Bible studies on these scriptures....
1. The substance of these commands was coming out of a warm , caring relationship of the Holy Spirit's Presence coming through the love, care and intercession of the apostles ministering the Word. Many of whom had been through this same living, breathing, process with Jesus Himself whilst on Earth. Initially in 3 years of ministry, plus 40 days of rather special ministration with the resurrected Christ, before His ascension.
2. The total understanding of these injunctions is that NO WAY, no ABSOLUTE WAY were the hearers going to fulfil this in their own strength.
3. If that was true under a Pentecostal Baptism in the Spirit understanding....it is a gazillion times more to be stressed in a 3rd Level approach.

Let me explain the last point.
Maybe the apex of "Holy Spirit and Me" technology was reached in the late 80s with Benny Hinn's book "Good Morning Holy Spirit"
This is Pentecostalism to the nth degree of intimacy. You can't go beyond this.
Jesus said about John...there is no one born of women greater....but the least person of the Kingdom would in fact be greater.
This might have sounded very strange at the time when Jesus said this. I am going to say something just as strange. What I am saying is this.
The next generation in God will go way beyond Benny Hinn's book.
Why.
Because it was always prophesied so.
Psalm 110:3 Your ^(F)people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power and

Psalm 24:4-6(He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false.

He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from God his Savior.

Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, O God of Jacob.

You see in Genesis 3:5 we picked up an evil spirit of the Devil himself
whose total way of existence is summed up in a delusion of separateness.
He catches us up in his lying existence to make-believe that we as him can
live as self-running beings, with no need for a spirit battery!!!
When really in the background he swapped our God linkage in our spirits for
a permanent devil linkage. Only Christ's cross has severed this link.
But throughout history until the present day, this has not fully come to the fore.

So to this day Christians are running around as "separate " beings
trying to focus on Christ
trying to pray
trying to work miracles
trying to preach a message of salvation
even....and listen to this....trying to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Now in the best light that Benny had at the time, he saw himself in a dual relationship with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit and Benny.

But from now on the Holy Spirit does not even allow us this luxury.
He is saying in Psalm 24 verse 4 "You have spent your entire lives
living by what is false. You thought you were gods in your own right.
Then you tried to live your renewed lives in this same old revelation...as separate beings in your own right. I have overlooked this since the Pentecostal outpouring in the 1900s, but now
is my time for a generation who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Who experience within themselves this Name change. Not Benny and the Holy Spirit. Benny is dead. Now it is Christ Benny and the Holy Spirit.

So you see the generation that is now emerging and is to come will be a totally new type of believer. Totally identified with the death of Christ
And consequently because of the Jesus words "if you abide, in my Word,then you are Truly my disciples, and you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free."
Now.
On Earth.
Not in some heavenly future.
AS real as we experience the outbreak of the Presence of God in meetings now....so this will become our every day experience together...all day long. And the apostles were the prototype.
Yup, they had disagreements. They were slow to grasp that Gentiles were included in the deal.

But they didn't lie.
They didn't go off with other women.
They didn't grasp money to themselves.
They were submissive one to the other.
Not one was on a power trip. And they had raw POWER!

So don't any of you dare talk to me about the sweet by and by. About some Feast of Tabernacles in the future, as if it can't be lived today. (Joseph Prince I've got your number) It is in the future...but only if it is now...if you see what I mean. My heaven in the future is dependant on me getting heaven now by asking Jesus into my heart. It's like that.
Don't give me that rubbish about putting up with one another's sins til we limp into glory.
Don't give me that grace rubbish which never actually cleans up our lives.
Grace is like honey. But is also like fire!!! Just you wait and see!!! You won't know what's hit you.
Well actually you will. Because of this very blog.
But listen!!!You're going to be OK.
Jacob was OK after his wrestling. God let him live.
You and I are going to live too. On this earth.

So back to Alan Vincent.
You will notice there are 2 stages to the revealing of this glorious Body in Ezekiel 37.
The one prophesying assembled the bones. Called them together. Then they began rattling.
If you put all our blogs together there is a tremendous rattling.
Some are more Calvinist. Some are more Armenian.
Some are more grace...some are more like Janelle
Some are more individual in outlook. Some are more corporate Body of Christ
Some are more faith and here and now, some are more glorious Hope of our Calling

Well I've got some good news.Whatever you currently are becomes irrelevant in the 3rd level.
Why. Because as Paul says in Corinthians they were immature, saying we are of such and such a ministry. In the 3rd level we get the LOT. Everything we are now missing.
Evangelicals who currently get the exchanged life thing, the "I am dead with Christ thing" but have no clue about moving in the Spirit....Guess what!!! they're going to get particularly soaked!!!
Charismatic Christians, who love the gifts of the Spirit, but who haven't the first clue about living a normal every day life in God...guess what.......they're going to carry their giftings and anointings right into family life, creative life, work life, educational life....and God's going to especially bless them at that, because now everyone is laughing at them.

The 3rd level is the 2nd prophesying. How do I work that out?
Well in the first level the Body of Christ as lived out corporately was impossible.
It's the release of the Holy Spirit. The baptism in the Holy Spirit that makes Body life a reality.
This is represented by the Holy Place and the Holiest Place. The outer courts was about us cutting covenant as individuals. The Holy Place and Holiest Place is about corporate life.
Particularly in the 70s the first prophesying was taking place as described by Maurice Smith's prophecy.

Now I believe is the time for the 2nd prophesying. The rattling was about assembling everything together. It was never meant to look good folks. It's a skeleton!!! Actually the Bible says skin and tendons came on it. But it was still a dead body.
Have you noticed the world has not been attracted by us so far!
Do you think there may be possibly another stage!!!!
Well that's what the 2nd prophesying is for!
This is the gist of Alan's word...but he didn't add the 3rd level bits.
So I believe that the 70s impartations were real. The visions were real in the same way that the Bible passages are real. But at that stage we did not have the Holy Spirit technology.
Our vision was a vaguely warmed up version of the church life as we knew it back then.
But the Way of God is a heart thing. David was the prototype of this.
Psalm 84:5 How blessed is the man whose ^(H)strength is in You, In whose heart are the ^(I)highways to Zion!

Later it is still my intention to do a summary on my thoughts about ministry, as affected by the revelation that a mature level, a third level, a father level as experienced by the Early church fathers, does exist. And it affects every single aspect of
1 the way we do church and
2 the way we do or don't do seminaries.

You don't getPsalm 84 " the strength" or "the internal heart highway" to Zion in a seminary.
You don't get it necessarily in a Morris Cerullo school of ministry or Youth with a Mission training centre. Perhaps you get an earnest...or a downpayment....
Jesus knew how to bring forth ministries by the power of His Word, all while they were sharing in ministry with Him. How cool is that? Maybe Rob Rufus is on the way to this. Maybe Peter Stott is also.

More on this later............