Lift Up Your Heads O Ye Gates Part Two

This is Part 2 of Lift Up Your Heads O You Gates as preached by Peter Stott in last year's May Conference 08 Part 1 is here. In this part you will learn how there are some things God cannot do...which you and I can. You will see our awesome responsibility here on Earth. And it finishes by tackling the question of a right militancy in the Body of Christ.
Part Two
Psalm 24
The King of Glory Entering Zion.
A Psalm of David.
1The (A)earth is the LORD'S, and [a]all it contains, The (B)world, and those who dwell in it. 2For He has (C)founded it upon the seas And established it upon the waters…..
(strange because it’s almost like he loses his head and goes off somewhere ) 3Who may (D)ascend into the (E)hill of the LORD? And who may stand in His holy (F)place? 4He who has (G)clean hands and a (H)pure heart, Who has not (I)lifted up his soul to falsehood And has not (J)sworn deceitfully. 5He shall receive a (K)blessing from the LORD And (L)righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6This is the generation of those who (M)seek Him, Who seek Your face--even Jacob. Selah.
Seek your face. Absolute key. seeking the face of God.

And let me just chuck in I do not believe those who say that what it says in scripture
about beholding the face of God seeing as in a mirror as of the glory of the Lord…that this is purely allegorical. It is the privilege of every believer to have revelation of the face of God. We have this treasure in jars of clay. What is this treasure. It is the LIGHT of the KNOWLEDGE of the GLORY of GOD in the FACE of JESUS CHRIST.
My friends God wants to bring revelation to our hearts….Just to say this..It is not what you know in your mind that will change you. It is what is revealed to your heart that will make the transition. And some of you yesterday came into a revelation of the Fatherhood of God. it was something you knew in your Napa…but now it is revealed to your heart. As a man believes in his HEART, so is he. And the place you receive revelation is your heart not your mind. Your mind needs to be renewed in the revelation that you have received in your heart. It’s WORD and SPIRIT. Both and….
Before I go any further I want to say this. Everything that is in this Book can happen..is available to you. I stand on the Word of God . I am a Brethren boy. I was brought up in the stuff. And for me the Word and the Spirit is absolute(ly) KEY . And I’m not one of those that want to find it in the Word first..I’ll jump in and fall of a cliff if I do… but then I want to find a theology for it afterwards ..I want to be sure that I am walking in something that’s in here (Bible)..that’s what I’m talking about..yeah?
You see this is the menu…this bible tells you what is available. But because you’ve read it, because you’ve read the menu, does not mean that you have tasted the meal!!! Does it? You just know what is available.
And I know so many Christians that have just read the menu. And they say” OOOh there’s a fantastic cuisine down there and I’ve been there!” And I think “Yeah and how much of it did you eat?”
What God wants to take is the menu and get us to digest it and ingest it and let it become PART OF US.Yes?

That’s why I have trouble with the name it and claim it boys. Just shout scripture loud enough and you’ll get it! I’m with Clive. There is nothing wrong with confessing scripture but I want to tell you that when you confess scripture when it is under the anointing and it is living in your heart and it is revealed to your heart…THEN IT PRODUCES. Yeah?
I want to say this with great reverence. I honour the Word of God ..but this is print on paper. Yeah? It BECOMES living reality when it is revealed to my heart by the Holy Spirit. And so Lord I want to pray today that we will be able to receive Your Word
differently Lord. God, don’t let it be head knowledge. Let it impart something to our hearts that will change the way we are the way we think and what we know we can do. Thank you Lord.
How far did I get??? Oh yeah…

Lift up your heads, O gates, And be lifted up, O [b]ancient doors, That the King of (O)glory may come in! 8Who is the King of glory? The LORD (P)strong and mighty, The LORD (Q)mighty in battle. 9Lift up your heads, O gates, And lift them up, O [c]ancient doors, That the King of (R)glory may come in! 10Who is this King of glory? The LORD of (S)hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah.
I want us to begin by looking at the scenario of war that we are in.You see from the day that Adam and Eve allowed the serpent to slither into the garden gave him permission up until Revelation 20 when he is to be bound and thrown into the Lake of fire the context of Christian living IS WARFARE in one of its dimensions. Don’t be kidded.
You were born for battle!
We are the warrior BRIDE.
There is no extension of Kingdom without warfare.
And yesterday Clive (Jackson of Shaftsbury) said something which I totally agree with..he said “warfare is always for territory.” I want to say to you that there is a cataclysmic battle going on. Ever since the proclamation in Genesis 3 when he talked about…you know….er…I’d better read it..trouble is you get to an age when you get a bit senior….
Yeah…Genesis 3:15.”.I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall crush your head and you shall bruise his heel..”
And in that I believe there was a scenario of war that was declared.
Let’s look at the bigger picture…because you and I are part of a much bigger picture.
Your life and my life are just one segment of a much greater picture. What is it?
Well it’s this. When God created the Earth and populated it we had a situation where you could say the Garden of Eden was an Open Heaven. There was no blockage between heaven and Earth. Adam and Eve walked in fellowship with God. God walked with them in the cool of the day and He has actually spoken those kind of words to us in the conference….and Adam and Eve walked in obedience to the will of heaven and the result was that there was heaven on earth.I believe that the expression of the kingdom of heaven on Earth was the Garden of Eden. Because everything on the earth was in harmony with heaven…there was harmony…there was accord…everything worked as it should do…it was exactly to the Creator’s design and methods of operation…it was there in the Garden.And at the end of the 7th day He looked back and said “It is good”.
But then that day came when the serpent slithered into the Garden and I want to say right away that Adam and Eve had absolute authority to shut the gate. They did not need to let him in. This was not some cruel scenario where they were in some fatalistic play that there was no way out of. they had authority to stop the serpent at the gate. And they chose to disobey God and let him in.
And that which God created for His Glory, that which was in perfect harmony with heaven; that which reflected His creative heart and Glory was brought into corruption, and has lived in corruption ever since.
But I want to tell you this God has an agenda. He has an agenda for this planet. Because God is a God of restoration. And God is determined that He is going to HAVE BACK what He had in the beginning….Now whatever your theology might be about the new heavens and the new Earth, Revelation tells me that we as the saints of God , the redeemed, will rule on the Earth. And I believe that is where we are heading. God is going to bring back on the Earth His government through us and there will come a point when heaven and Earth will totally reconnect. That is the BIG scenario.Yeah? That’s where we are heading.

I just love the fact that we are about destiny- we are part of a great Eternal Plan that God has….your life is not haphazard. You fit into this amazing strategy - and there is a part in this that you can play - and this IS YOURS ALONE….and I’ll say this right now
There is a destiny that you have in the Earth that is given to no one else…and if you don’t fulfil your destiny…and those guys out there don’t get saved and fulfil their destiny there’ll be one part of it that doesn’t get fulfilled until Jesus comes back and wraps the whole lot up…..Yes?
But you are purposefully made…you are born for such a time as this
You are a Kingdom person
There is a destiny over your life that God purposed and planned for you before the foundation of the world.
There are good works for you to walk in that He has already planned for you. They are Kingdom works. (That is) they are walking in the Glory they are walking in the obedience to heaven…yes?
Whoooo!

I just want to say if you are taking notes just put headings…cos there are quite a lot of mature people in this room (You’re not kidding writes Chris…I remember listening to Kitt Mason’s cassettes when I was still 16, I’m now 50…and he’s quietly listening to this for example) So I’m not going to qualify everything I say…I’m just going to chuck it out and I want you to do the Berean thing and search it out in the scriptures. if I give you rabbit trails to go up…then go up them and find them and study them.

That’s the big picture . So we’ve basically got 3 players in this. And the territory is the Earth. I would be sufficiently stupid to believe that it’s just possible that this is the only planet in the whole of God’s creation that is in rebellion against Him.Ha Ha Ha..it could be…I dunno…can’t prove it, but I just had a thought
Or maybe this solar system…and that’s all fallen…there’s a lot more to it than that. Yeah? But anyway…what this is about is the redemption of the Earth. The restoration of the Glory..and the Kingdom…and the Rule of God in the Earth.

Now we need to look at the end of Psalm 24 to really understand this.
Lift up your heads O ye gates and be lifted up you everlasting doors.
AND LET THE KING OF GLORY COME IN.

What are these gates? What are these doors?
Beloved – WE ARE THE GATES INTO THE EARTH.

The humans are the gatekeepers into the Earth. Even the King of Glory needs our permission to come into the territory of Earth.
Eh?
There are some things that God cannot do…and I know there is a theologian or two here this morning and you are going to get a bit twitchy…but I want to explain what I am saying. There are some things that God cannot do. And one of them is this.He cannot deny Himself. And He is not a man that He will lie. So that when God sets something in order and makes an edict - an eternal edict – He cannot go back on it.
So in some senses He becomes the victim o f the edict and the decision that He has made.

And one of those edicts and decisions was this one. When he expressed His intention to create the human, He said “Let Us make man in our image and after Our likeness.And let them have dominion over the Earth.” And it says it twice between Genesis 1:26 and 28. And then it says in Psalm 8 “What is man that you are mindful of him for you have made him a little lower than the angels…”
In the original it means a little less than God. “And you have crowned him with glory and honour”… and I used to think when I read that that it has to be Jesus…no it isn’t..it’s referring to us. He has crowned us with glory and honour. And He has put all things under our feet. Read it! It’s exciting reading.

What did God do in that creative edict? He gave us government and guardianship of the Earth. There’s a psalm - I cannot place it - which reads “The heavens are yours…but the Earth you have given to the sons of men” and there is a delegation to us as the human…of authority in the Earth, an authority that Adam and Eve abused…because they did not need to let the beggar in…because they were the ones that were custodians of the Earth because they could have made decision to obey God and kept the enemy out yeah?

Both God and the Enemy needed the same thing…they needed a human channel..because the Earth belongs to man. (Chris thinks: this makes an awful lot of sense of Norman Grubb’s inverse truth…that we are containers…and NEED to be powered by spirit…whether God or Satan. And that the concept of an in between existence of us existing as independent beings…is an absolute delusion peddled by Satan the arch peddler of lies….sorry to butt in)
So the Enemy has to get man’s permission
and God needs to get man’s permission
Have you got it? Check it out! This is awesome stuff. “Lift up your heads o ye gates and be ye lifted up you ancient doors that the King of Glory may come in.”
We’ve got this cataclysmic battle going on for the Earth and if you want to put the two opposing forces into the picture - we are talking about the Lord of Hosts, the Lord God Almighty, Our God…the One that we have worshipped this morning on the one hand, and the Evil One Satan - on the other. And I just believe we have become so sophisticated in our 21st century living that we think this raw stuff about the devil is a bit medieval and a bit mystic. Can I blow your brains out! It is NOT. It is the reality that we live in.
Please….I tell you there is a profound difference between the way God operates and the way the Enemy operates. Although their end intention is probably the same thing…to govern the Earth..yeah?
Satan seeks to conceal himself and God seeks to reveal Himself.
And because of Satan’s concealment we are oftentimes in a battle that we don’t recognise. And my friends many of the things that we are up against in our lives we just put up with. but we’ve actually got authority to do something about because we are being INVADED by the Enemy. And I want to EXPOSE that now in Jesus Name.
He doesn’t come along with horns and say” Hi I’m here.” He conceals himself behind all kinds of things. He conceals himself behind the spirit of the age and we buy it all in…we take on the values.
What is the world? (world system) The world is the friendly face of Satan.
It negotiates with our mind…it sets up…..(breaks off)
I tell you for one instance, we live in a culture yeah? And if you imbibe Political Correctness and stuff into you, you are going to get infected with it. And you know one of the things in our culture is this:
I stand for my rights!!!
We have become a culture that has exalted individual rights above corporate responsibility.And we are seeing the breakdown of a society because of it. The Kingdom is the exact opposite. It is : I lay down my life for my brother. Yes?
We imbibe that stuff off the TV and media every day. We were only saying this morning over breakfast…you know when you get these awful murders. Do you know they interview the parents…and I have huge sympathy…but they are all seeking revenge. They are all saying, “I won’t be able to sleep until the guy’s behind bars.”What difference is that going to make?
The only way to get free is to forgive. And we are ingesting this stuff all the time. Even Christians begin to get a revenge culture.But I tell you God wants to renew us in the spirit of our minds.
Who is the perpetrator of all evil? He is the Evil One and and will masquerade in all kinds of ways…he will try to infiltrate our minds and get us to think how he wants us to. Rather than have our minds transformed by the spirit of the Living God. My friends this is a raw battle and we need to expose it.

We have become too….(breaks off)
Do you know the Lord spoke this to me a few months ago, I believe. He said, “Peter, I “I want to restore to My Church a sense of militancy.”
I can remember in the early days of the charismatic movement we had a militancy, but I am not sure it was quite right. But the answer to the abuse of something is not the NON-USE…..but the correct use. And God wants to restore a spiritual…say spiritual..militancy to the people of God. We’ve been robbed and plundered. I want to tell you…sickness does not come from God.Now I’m not going into the theology of healing but I just want to say to you as Bill Johnson said the other day, “You know God can’t give you cancer, because He hasn’t got it.” Ha! I rather like that.
You know I think we are sitting under all kinds of stuff that we’ve actually got the authority to do something about. Yes?

And God wants to awaken the Warrior Bride. That sense of militancy that says…Enough is Enough!!! You know because of the way that the Enemy conceals himself.We get kind of cooked like the frog…slowly in a pan of water as it heats up to the boil. The water is nice and warm. We get acclimatized to it and fall asleep, then die!
End of Part Two…