I'm not sure it's hit everyone yet....
a) what this blog is about and b) how huge the implications are. Think huuuuuuuuge.
Gerald Coates and John Noble immediately saw the ramifications of what a true Spirit-filled people in the Earth would be. And they produced "Fulness " magazine. The distinction was this. "Restoration" magazine saw God restoring the church to a place where it would propel the message of the gospel out into the four corners of the Earth. "Fulness" magazine could see that God doesn't want to just save us to inhabit church meetings...He wants to fill us with the Fulness of Himself so we learn to carry on where Adam left off...living out our whole lives in a newness of life, issuing out of a relationship with God Himself. Perhaps a broader vision than just having charismatics exporting charismatic meetings everywhere.
Thing was....we only had secondlevel equipment at the time. And as fabulous as it was to prance about to Christine Noble's freedom dances....and to hire big halls and events and call them banquets......we were all just secondlevellers attending bigger meetings!!!!
But Maurice Smith's vision "The Glorious Church" is accurate. Gerald Coates and John Noble both saw that this was going to be nothing short of a new Reformation....maybe one that would put the Lutheran and Calvinist one right in the shade!!!
So this post is a kind of summary. In an unsubtle manner I am pointing with a 60 foot finger to the strands we have covered so far.
It all went wrong in the Garden...so this is where God is starting again. Most gracebloggers...in fact let's be clearer...just about all the charismatic movement...start too late. Tonight you can probably watch Creflo Dollar or Kenneth Copeland or Jesse Duplantis starting at Deuteronomy 28...declaring how God is reversing these Chapter 28 curses into the blessings at the beginning of the chapter.
Well....the gospel's better than that!!! See, you can have all those blessings and still feel as desperate as Dan Bowen does at times. I had no idea that was what was behind the cutting. Truly I feel torn apart when I read this...because you see folks...we are all in this together...we are all joined!!! And quite apart from this...although Jesus demands a total seriousness of heart regarding sin.....just as He does different aspects of sin...like fear...when He says...don't fear him who has power to hurt the body or kill...fear Him who has the Power over the 2nd Death...He who has the power to cast into hell... Or regarding wealth...it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle....etc etc...or before removing the speck in your brother's eye, take the log out of your own....
These are all serious statements in the Spirit....but not meaning we have to take a knife to ourselves....but having got our attention He wants to tell us something worse....He has killed us. He killed us on the Cross, then bound up the resurrected remains in Himself...so if we want to find life and deliverance...we have to peer into Him in heaven to see Dan Bowen hidden with Christ in God. Then what we peer into in heaven becomes manifest out through our bodies on earth. Which is a far less bloody way of dealing with things...the only blood ofcourse being already shed 2000 years ago!!! Back to the post............
So what went wrong in Genesis 3? And what went right for us when Christ died and was raised to the right hand of God the Father.
- It's this simple..........PERIOD.
ADAM reached out an arm and grabbed a fruit.As he did so a false spirit entered his spirit chamber.Permanently. At the Cross, this false spirit was ejected from our spirit chamber.Permanently. Now we reach out an arm, leg,.....anything....believing it is Christ as me...in my form. PERIOD.This is expanded on here - Some Doors and Gates slammed shut. This has caused seismic problems for us. This and the reversal of this curse is discussed in Peter Stott's blockbuster message on Psalm 24 (Split into 4 parts)
- Last year and this year has been for our Havant church a completely fresh understanding of God as Father. Peter Stott has talked on intimacy with God for ages...but somehow it has been and still is God's timing for opening this as a well of understanding and revelation in the church.
Both the Havant May2008 Who is the King of Glory Conference - particularly Clive Jackson of Shaftsbury....and then Mark Stibbe's messages in RiverCamp2008 opened this whole area.
In Chapter 7 of Orphans and Heirs Mark Stibbe writes about the cycle of grace.Original source Frank Lake"Clinical Theology".
The Cross restores this cycle to the right order.Acceptance - Feeding on it -til it becomes a fixed thing in us-then out of that we achieve.Beforehand, we were operating in reverse. It was a cycle of Law. Feeling hollow and useless we try to achieve,to work - to get a feeling of worth - then out of that to try and gain acceptance.Churches are full of this stuff. It is not my intention to say any more about this, because his book can be purchased here .But it is very important material. Just to say there is a very interesting paragraph on Jonathan Edwards.
One of the questionable aspects in the charismatic renewal has been the tendency to trust in external sensations rather than inward communion as the basis of assurance. There has been an unspoken
tendency to thirst after bodily reactions to God's power more than the inner testimony of the Spirit. This has created a culture in which shaking, falling, laughing, weeping, jerking and groaning have become the only signs that God truly loves and accepts us. Those who experience these things feel affirmed by God's touch. Those who don't experience them feel rejected and left out.
Jonathan Edwards wrote a great deal about the dangers of this particular tendency back in the First Great Awakening in eighteenth- century America. By the time he wrote his classic work, Religious
Affections, he had become very cautious about the more sensational phenomena associated with revival. For Edwards, the true sign of "grace in a believer's life was not constant visions (much of which he attributed to the imagination), nor the 'bodily exercises' (such as shaking and falling),
but those operations on the heart that are spiritual, supernatural and divine. In other words, Edwards looked on the heart of a person rather than on his outward appearances. His chief concern was whether or not a person knew in his heart something that could never have been discovered naturally and could only have been communicated through the work of the Holy Spirit. Did a person know the royal seal of the Prince of Princes? Did he know that the seal of the High King of heaven had been stamped upon his heart? This was what Edwards meant by the 'divine' operation of the Spirit, for nothing could be more divine than the revelation that we are God's children. This, then, is what Edwards called the witness of the Spirit-the revelation that we are the adopted children of God with attendantevidence of that fact in our lives. For Edwards, the crucial passage of scripture in this whole area is Romans 8:16, where Paul says that the Spirit witnesses to our spirits that we are the children of God. Edwards showed that the Spirit referred to is the Spirit of adoption that dwells in
us, leads and guides us, and disposes us to behave towards God as children towards a father. This is the Spirit of love that creates 'the disposition and temper of children, appearing in sweet childlike love to God, which casts out fear or a spirit of a slave'.Once the believer knows this internal work of the Spirit, he will never need 'multiplied signs' because he feels plainly the intuitive and immediate union with Abba, Father. This kind of operation could never be created by the flesh or inspired by the devil. While both an unholy and the human spirit can suggest scriptures and give false visions, neither can lead to genuine intimacy with Abba, Father. Jonathan Edwards"Religious Affections - Rob Rufus has been preaching on this fourth strand of what went on in the Garden.http://www.citychurchinternational.net/mp3_2/2009_02_15.zip We received a lying spirit about the nature of the goodness and greatness of God. This was because we swallowed Genesis 3:5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and (D)you will be like God, knowing good and evil." i.e He was holding out on us. Instead we would be like God. And in our independant godlike status we could judge things...weigh facts. And this is why our faithlife...our miracle life is like scaling a cliff face. because any faith that we are trying to muster is coming out of 2 false foundations. 1 - that we can be independant...this is Satan terrain...and 2. That God is a liar and He is not really that good. These 2 false roots need ripping out from the insides of our beings before we can ever get anywhere. This is why what Rob Rufus and Bill Johnson are preaching is so vital to the church at the moment. It is grace!. But it is WARFARE! Because God wants His Church back...to operate through...to reach the world.
So to sum up. The third level is not the same as the charismatic movement. It is deeper. It goes back further in time. It deals with the roots. In posts to come I want to deal with our left-brain living. Our manner of life that is darkened see Romans1/ Ephesians 2. The opposite in other words of living as the Bible instructs in Proverbs 3:5-6.
Rob James said last week while we prayed as men, that Time magazine had announced among the top 10 discernible trends of the immediate future would see a Rise in Calvinism, especially in the USA. This is what Iggy is up against. This Calvinism/Armenian debate is to this day stripping churches in places like Liss here in England.
Instead of getting into this I am going to now spell out the real truth! The real truth is that the English and the Americans, after centuries of wrangling are still locked into their left-brains. That is what this argument is showing. It is almost as if the recent waves of God from the Great Awakening onwards...have not happened. Churches are still filled with darkness.Jesus said"If the light within you is darkness....how great is the darkness!!!"
You may as well wrangle over the Trinity in the way Muslims do when confronted by Christian doctrines. The truth is that all these truths, and many many more to come fall instantly into place in the third level. So faced by wrangling males...and it usually is....ripping God's own church to shreds by their disobedience and darkness of thought, and shrivelled faithlife....I would say
SHUTUP! SIT DOWN! HAVE PATIENCE! LET GOD LOVE YOU. AND ALL WILL BECOME CLEAR ...once the idolatry of your own minds has been torn down...ready for God Himself to speak to You.
The other thing that will sort us out is something I've only just seen in the last few days. Those in the "Prophetic Voice" group in Facebook know that Jose asked me to put down the Ship Propulsion unit vision fom HMS Sultan Summer fete last year. The Lord only released this vision locally in the last Key of David meeting in Havant. But the original appeared in Dan's vaults on 21st June last year. (Keep an eye on our blogs...you will see stuff first here!) But what I have only just understood is that the ring burner ministry vision is to be married with the "orb" vision I had. I will put them down afresh for you in the next post. In other words , through relating giftings and ministries , as we saw in the past through Fort Lauderdale and the London group of ministries....something like a circular forcefield of God's Presence was created. A safeguard. A fulness of ministry. A balance of Word. Not an intellectual balance. We are talking in the Spirit. And the Power and anointing upon these circles of ministries will be unlike anything we have seen to date. Why different than before?Because, as Ian McCulloch shared with me once about the London brothers' gatherings, as anointed as they were on a platform together...they were still pretty left-brain locked when it came to arguing doctrines amongst themselves in leader's meetings. Having met some since...I can believe it!!! Brethren....I have faith for this to stop. Why? Because He has been doing something to stop this in leader's gatherings in Havant...so He can do it elsewhere too! Even in the USA!! Imagine that!! Anyway...back to the subject of the post....
This thing is huuuuge. If everything that went wrong....if everything that we see surrounding us...came out of a marriage of creative mankind marrying up with a Satan spirit....what on Earth will be the outcome of a creative mankind learning to live fulltime in the Son....Jesus. There is nothing the River of God won't touch. There is nothing left out of the verse "The knowledge of the glory of God will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea!!!!"
I think it's bigger Rheinhardt Bonnke, than even filling stadiums with nigh on a million people! I think it's bigger Morris Cerullo, than collecting hundreds and thousands together and praying an Elijah anointing on them! I think it's bigger Rob Rufus, than building a big grace church in Hong Kong! I think it's bigger than collecting orphans into the biggest orphanages and most successful orphanages that this world has seen! I think it's bigger Bill Johnson than recreating what John G Lake had years ago....an anointing for healing and miracles!I think it's a bit bigger Iggy than creating perfect Emerging churches...or sitting at home and learning the Father's love on your own like Amy is Walking In the Spirit. I think it's bigger than building ever bigger networks of charismatic churches with only 2 out of 3 revelations: The Abraham and Isaac revelation...but no Jacob revelation.Listen to me Terry Virgo! Mark Driscoll!
It's bigger than just becoming good at improving education. We're talking about teaching and imparting all of Romans...not just the first 3 or 5 chapters. The result being that we lead people into turning their environment around....Romans 8 "the sons setting creation free." St Paul knew how to do this. The third level is the biggest single thing to hit the Earth since Genesis. What bigger than the Cross? No it cannot beat the cross in any other way than this.....Jesus came to raise a multitude who would live,sleep walk,pray...in the same anointing and the same quality of life that He had. He was the firstborn of many brethren. That's why it's huuuuuuge! He is pouring out revelation in these days to show us the tricks of how we do it....just like He did it!!! The charismatic thing was the practice run. It was Isaac and Jacob faithing things in. The third level is what happened after Jacob met God at Peniel! Then the history of corporate Israel really began!!!! This is when the corporate Christ will really hit the planet! The rest has just been boxing the air in a gym!!!
"SHUTUP! SIT DOWN! HAVE PATIENCE! LET GOD LOVE YOU. AND ALL WILL BECOME CLEAR"
ReplyDeleteThis is good advice! This post has helped me understand why I'm both fascinated and frustrated with the things you write!!
I've been trying to apprehend it with my "left brain" - rationally piece together what you're saying - when it is a matter of the Spirit, and can only be matured by the Spirit.
I'm going to try and take your advice - quiet my soul, spend time with my Father, and let Him love me into the truth becoming incarnate not just in reality but in my experienced reality :)
Thanks!
Wow Jon...I'd hate to think I was frustrating a wonderful person like you! A lot becomes clear being among the Ursula's and the Isi de Gersigny's of this world!
ReplyDeleteThey are good therapy for us left-brain men folk. Norita Garcia married to Roberts Pianos man Marcus Roberts Oxford...was the one for me. She kept repeating "Estas todo en la mente Chris...you're all in the mind Chris" She's Argentinian and she'd learned the way of the Spirit through Ed Miller and Jorge Pradas.
Thanks for commenting again!!
Hehe, I don't think I'd say that it's you frustrating me as much as knowing that there is something profoundly true in what you're saying, but not being able to grasp it. The methods I've been using to grasp it haven't been working, and *that* is frustrating!
ReplyDeleteAll of the stuff I'm learning at the moment - about the grace of God in all it's richness, about walking with God in everything, and about the third level life you're talking about - is stuff I've caught glimpses of in the last 10-15 years of my Christian life but never apprehended it. The full vision has played at the edge of the eyes of my heart for so long, and I'm getting tired of the glimpses, and just want to enter into it! Well, it seems like this is a season for the fullness to come forward and for it to happen in the whole body of Christ.
Keep writing what you write 'cos if it's frustrating, it's a good frustration that is leading to maturity and the fullness of the mystery being revealed - Christ in you, the hope of glory!
This message has been thwarted at every step. i don't know what happened to Jacob Boehme in the 1500s, but I know Madame Guyon was put in the Bastille and then put to death.It's a timing thing. The time has now come for Christ in Us as Us to be proclaimed. In a way we have more infrastructure to be able to handle it. Although our brains are only physical objects, the discoveries in brain research over just the last 20-40 years have at least pointed the way to some of the ways in which we are built, and process different kinds of information. This points too to fresh understandings of the way God deals with us.
ReplyDeleteI wish everyone reading this blog was as clear as you. Once we set our direction on the insides of us...it literally is only a matter of time before the inward becomes outward. I'll probably do more on the subject of "Going Up in Secret"...in the first ever thing I did in 1989 on a tape called "Third Level Christianity" I talked about those verses "Whatsoever is spoken in secret shall be shouted from the rooftops."
I'm hoping not to miss out on what God is doing...but your generation are going to see more!!!!