Poem : Play by Brian Coatney (today)

Play



I can always hear from God

straight up,

but often it’s fun to hear Him

through you:

either is fine to do;

the nice thing about the latter way,

is that it’s one of God’s,

thus our, favorite ways to play.



When you don’t know

the straight-up way,

you chase ministers all the time,

frustrated not to get enough,

and this is not a crime, deliberately done,

but doesn’t sound the ultimate chime

of playing things either way.



The main thing is to hear;

yes, without that

one is always guessing,

seeking God’s will like

a dart game with the board

way too far away,

which I would find distressing.



God doesn’t make the game that hard;

serious workers do—

like I once was,

where if you make things too easy,

the game doesn’t fit one’s pride,

leaving one flapping around

without enough to do.

That might dangerously lead

to a look on the inside.



But when it’s OK to score every time,

dart to the bull’s-eye—

oh, not without tension,

and loads of suspense all along

(Please don’t consider those things wrong)—

then the game is always certain and fun,

without unbelief about the outcome

when all is said and done.



BC/6-30-2010

Jesus and Pilate - Who's in Charge by Brian Coatney

The following article is compiled and edited from The Global Internet Sunday School Class located at Spiritbroadcasting.net.
Top picture mormonmatters.org. Other pictures Zefirelli Jesus of Nazareth film on Youtube.

In our study of John’s Gospel, we're up to Pilate, and he is in a stressful place, but isn't that what life is, the stress of choices? Everyone who encounters Jesus decides something about him, so here is Pilate's first opportunity, and it turns out not to be a happy one for him, though it could have been.



I asked for impressions of Pilate from previous times of reading the gospel story about him, and my friend Phyllis said, “He fell into the trap of people-pleasing to keep his job.”



Pilate wants to know the accusation, and we see from the accusers’ response that they pick up the skepticism in Pilate's question. Pilate obviously thinks not highly of them, so they are quite sarcastic with him too. Pilate wants no part of this, and isn't that the sticky thing about a lot of situations, i.e. that we get confronted with something we want no part of, and the stress is how to dodge it. Pilate would like the whole thing to go off to a Jewish court and leave him alone as things were, but things will not be as they were, for with Jesus, they never are.



The Accusers Hunker Down for Death



The accusers want Pilate to just swallow their bias, and we see that the sticking point is capital punishment: the accusers want Jesus dead, and they cannot do that according to occupation law of the Romans. Wanting Jesus dead, that is fierce. Why do they want him dead? My friend Karen said, “because of who He said He was,” and Phyllis said, “He didn't pet their egos.” Whoo, good points!



Jesus just drives them crazy, to a murderous rage. The word law keeps floating to mind here. Karen said, “They are trying to live under the law,” and Phyllis observed, “It takes humility and honesty to admit that not only are we wrong on a certain point, but we ourselves are wrong.”

What is a Wrong Self?



So what does it mean that we ourselves are wrong? This reminds me of Dan Stone's old talks on Romans, how that the first part of Romans is about sins, and the middle part (Chap 5-7) about sin, so maybe the point is about sins and sin, and the difference. Karen said, “Sins are the fruit of sin.”



Also, in Romans chapter 7, Paul says, "no longer I but sin dwelling in me." So that was a revelation to him that the human isn't the problem, but sin in the human, and in that sense we ourselves have been wrong, but not for the reason we first thought. We start by thinking, "I am a wrong self." When we see what Paul says in Romans chapter 7, we see that it's an operator problem—an indweller problem; but when we are still deceived about that, we think "good self" or "bad self”; and this is how the accusers saw Jesus, and thus the rage, for Jesus claims to be deity, but also human vessel who is operated by his indwelling Father, so that drove the accusers crazy.



Pilate Starts to Really Sweat!



So we have in John 18 a culmination of three years of buildup about who Jesus is, and it has all come to a head in the Father's time here, for Jesus was untouchable until his time. Pilate has picked up that this controversy centers on whether Jesus is king of the Jews, so he asks Jesus about this, but Pilate doesn't seem bothered about whether Jesus is king of the Jews, for he evidently feels secure about Roman control whether the Jews have a king or not. In fact, an open king might be easier to deal with than a guerilla king.



Pilate, though, puts the question directly to Jesus.

After all, life is not about what others think ultimately, but what we think, so Jesus wants to know if Pilate is a real person. How much does he really want to know the truth. Before we know who we are, we are imitators and try to fit in here or there and find out who is boss and what the chain of authority is—the pecking order as the cliché puts it. Jesus threatens every human pecking order and gets at our guts, our insides.



Pilate is very sarcastic, saying, "Am I a Jew?" Yet the deepest questions of life are not about being a Jew. Pilate doesn't catch that this whole conversation is about what it means to be a human, what happens to us when we die, how we live now, what suffering is, and how we connect with God?—all the baseline questions we're meant to ask about life. Pilate isn't asking these questions; it's easier for him to just pawn Jesus off as a cultural difference, as a novelty, a conquered nation’s trivial arguments over law.



Jesus Loves Pilate



Jesus loves him and gives him an opportunity. So what does one do with a king from another world? Pilate starts to smell the coffee here, for he says, "So you are a king?" Now he sees that Jesus is real; he may not think Jesus is correct, but he knows Jesus is real. Real is what is scary to Pilate. and if Jesus is a king, then how does the kingship of Jesus match up with the Romans? Does Jesus really have any authority?



We ordinarily judge by external power, and it appears that Pilate has the power. It often appears that others have the power, and not we. There’s an odd twist here, for Jesus says, "You say that I am a king." Why would he say that to Pilate? It’s an awakening moment of consciousness, for if Pilate really thought that Jesus was a silly joke, a puppet, or a political clown, or a madman—then why would Pilate be so unsettled? Something is hitting center with Pilate, and he doesn't like this moment of awakening to a difficult choice.



I think it's good too, to see this not just as Pilate, though Pilate is a real person who makes a real choice; but we also can see this as a universal script, common to man—what it means to first realize that someone is challenging us that our whole world has been uninformed and that we have lived entirely on false premises.



Will Somebody Tell Me What this is All About?



Here we meet, too, the mystery of freedom, for I never have known why I seek and others don't. Everyone has sickness, pain, death, broken families, etc; and some come to God, and others trudge on and don't ask eternal questions. Why one seeks, and one does not is a mystery to me—the mystery of freedom.



Pilate has the opportunity to see himself as simply a member of the human family, the lost human family, and to be just a regular person who needs a drink of water as it were—not some special person who is above other people. Can Pilate come down to just being a vessel? When I finally broke, in 1993, I was ready to just be a vessel, not some special this or that, just fundamentally a person. So we need the truth about what that means.



Jesus now is bold to say that he, Jesus, came into the world (implying from another world) to specifically tell us the truth—about what it means to be a person. So Jesus tells Pilate that he, Jesus, is the chosen one to speak this truth. Pilate must have wanted to fall over at this one: what do you do when an ordinary human being stands before you and says that he is a king and came into the world to proclaim the truth about what it means to be a person? Not only that, Jesus says that everyone who seeks truth listens to him.



Yet he is a nobody, this Jesus—an obscure uneducated Nazarene, born of a virgin if one can take that. This is not what Pilate wanted after his morning coffee, to have to deal with angry Jews wanting someone dead, and then that person being a king who tells us the truth, and was sent from heaven to do that.

Truth and Dodge Ball



Pilate asks a flip question, "What is truth?" but he really wants to dodge the whole thing,

and he is scared to explore what Jesus is really about, so he tries another strategy. Surely the accusers wouldn't choose to have Barabbas on the streets again, but lo they would! Pilate is desperately trying to extricate himself, wanting to get this resolved without killing Jesus, but will he be able to negotiate that? This is a good look at how the flesh desperately tries to work itself out of a jam.



Flesh on both sides wants something: the Jewish leaders on the one hand, Pilate on the other—flesh against flesh, and no way out on this one. It's a good example of how flesh cannot solve flesh, and underneath it's not flesh in the skin and bones sense, but devilish wills at war, a house divided—Satan against Satan, and there Jesus stands above all of that, from another world, the world of truth, not different from the nations today.



Pilate tries scourging and humiliation. I hadn't thought of this, but the crown of thorns and the purple robe are a mock by the Romans, as if to say, "So what if he were your king; what difference would it make to us? Rome is in control." That's a ploy to put things back on the Jews, to mock them really that it doesn't matter if they have a king or not, except to themselves, and it's not a capital concern of the empire. It is a Roman message, "I have defeated your king."



When One Tries to Negotiate with Satan



Pilate hoped these measures would deflate the Jewish leaders. However, it incited them more. The ploy backfired, and the sharks smelled the blood. This is a good lesson too on what happens when trying to pacify a terrorist. It never works. Talking down a terrorist can't work; only a new creation can work, a replacement of natures, a new Spirit inside: and we are all terrorists until that, capable of anything. I terrorized my three siblings growing up, terrorized classmates in school, did power plays on any that would take it. The script here is universal in scope and applies to all ages everywhere.



There’s no way to talk down or temper the nature of Satan in a person; only a new birth will do. No wonder Jesus didn't negotiate for himself; he knew what it would take to save us.



We know the cry: "Crucify him!" Pilate says for them to do it, knowing it’s illegal; is he serious? What would he have done if they had? I imagine he would have executed the perpetrators—relieved that killing Jesus was not his doing and yet glad that the foment was over.



But the Lord isn't thru with His witness to Pilate, for the Jews say Jesus should die because he "made himself the son of God." There it is again—the whole crux. Pilate knows there’s something to this, or else he would have laughed it off. But he can't; he's spooked. He feels great fear.



There’s Only One Power in the Universe



It is good to feel this kind of fear, not as permanent, but to seek, and seek Pilate does, though briefly. What a question he asks Jesus: "Where are you from?" I can hear the echoes of that all the way to the bottom: Pilate senses another world, one he's accountable to way bigger than Rome. This is about the One who made us, to whom we all give account, the high and holy King of all. And there he stands in human form.



Note that Jesus does not answer, only silence, and that can be quite a reproof. The silence at times of my old mentor Norman Grubb was deafening when I asked the wrong question. Issues are often in the tone of the question: it's not like Pilate asked where Jesus was from because he wanted to embrace such a place, but because he was afraid of Jesus and didn't want to know about some new and open door to truth. Pilate held onto himself and was offended at this silence from Jesus.



"How can you not answer me?" he thinks. That's our offense when we've been flesh people: "How can you do such and such to me?" Pilate’s acting out of self-for-self and a supposed independent I, which is really Satan underneath. Jesus’ answer is two pronged: first, Pilate's power is given to him. Whooo! What a load that statement is: evil perpetrators have no power of their own.



This used to offend me to hear, that there is one power. I wanted to gnash against evil. Jesus tells Pilate that Pilate has only the power given him, which is to say it doesn't come from Rome but from above. What a statement for Pilate to hear.



Jesus also says that the Jewish leaders have the greater sin. Obviously from the text, we can tell that this pierced Pilate badly, like a javelin to the gut; he is reeling, as he should be. This is God's great good toward Pilate: God gives him a wonderful opportunity, and that's the strange thing about opportunities—they look like afflictions and trials, but they are opportunities. Temptations are also opportunities. Everything is opportunity. Yikes, we don't want to hear that at first.



What the Devil Means for Evil, God Means for Good



Even when we think a thing is the devil trying to get us to do something wrong, the greater picture is the opportunity for faith, to see God in control. However, Pilate chooses only to see the threat to himself, rather than choose by faith the opportunity to see a whole new world.



Here’s the familiar script: Christ or Caesar, pick one—man or God, and we know what choosing man has at its root, Satan. And think of the risk for Pilate if he lets Jesus go free—all kinds of complications when the Jews complain to Caesar, all kinds of explaining for Pilate to do, maybe lose his job, get accused of not being willing to kill an obscure Jew in order to keep the peace, especially a Jew who says he is a king. All this is a day's political work in the world, but how desperately terrible are the consequences of that thinking.



Yet, this is the plan that from God's end saves those who believe.



Pilate tries one more time: "Here is your king." "Shall I crucify your king?" The accusers utter the unthinkable to a Jew. Really, it is the unthinkable, but they hate Jesus badly enough to blaspheme by saying, “We have no king but Caesar.”



Who are the Real Founding Fathers of Freedom?



We’re going to visit our family in Boone, NC soon via Sylvia Pearce’s, and then visit

Monticello in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson's home, close also to the university he helped found, UVA. Jefferson was a humanist, but he had quite a home place—great architecture and history to visit; but Jefferson is not the real father of liberty. Sadly, it's possible to love American freedoms and totally miss Christ, thus making liberty not real liberty.



The real Declaration of Independence will always be Romans 1-8. That's the real constitution and declaration. Paul is the real founding father; the apostles are the real founding fathers. That's why their names are on the twelve gates of pearl in the city of God, the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city.



So, who’s in charge? You tell me.

Part Two of How can you tell a 2nd level church ?- (and how, thankfully the Holy Spirit completely ignores the restrictions).

Completed -3.07am- Fri June 26th-Facebook note

In part one a foundation was laid describing how the Kingdom is about bringing the Heavenly Reality…that is the ways, attributes, functionings of heaven to earth. That there is now, and always has been a heavenly Tabernacle which was represented by an early prototype in Moses Tabernacle, then later by the Tabernacle of David, and later Solomon’s Temple.
The true Tabernacle and Temple
But Jesus said “I will tear down this temple (meaning His body now) and rebuild it in three days, signifying by what death He was going to die.”

Why , in this discussion is this important?

Because Jesus was going to do something no one had ever done before. Ever.
Outside of our time world, He had declared “Today, I have begotten you, It is written of me in the book, “I come to do your will O Lord.””

The Word that dwelt with the Father was not human, but God, present at the foundation of our known world. He was saying an Eternal “YUP”……
to becoming a containing vessel like us,
to becoming fully human
and to, (for the first time anywhere, ever,) bringing human flesh in its now glorified form
into the very Presence of the Father in the Holiest Place.
Never. Never. Never. Had anything like this ever happened.
Before this the Word had dwelt in the Presence of the Father….but never had a human.
So for the first time in heaven , now since the ascension, a human stands on the righthand of God the Father. And guess what? It gets better! He is interceding there for us. Why is that good? Just because He’s good at praying…so that us struggling little beings make it to the end of our lives without losing faith?
Nope.
His intercession is for us to catch the revelation on our insides that He has prepared a place for us. What, you mean rent-a home, on the outer reaches of heaven somewhere in the outer circle?
Nope. You’ve completely missed it.
He is not ashamed to call us brethren.
The place He has prepared for us fellow humans….. Fellow containers of God Himself is in this unheard of place that no one in their right mind in heaven would have even contemplated…


The very Holiest of Holies. This new place where human flesh can go and yet still live.
This is what is meant by
He has opened up for us by a new and Living Way……..
a place at the right hand of God
A place in the very heart of the Father
A place, in that sense that no angel can ever quite get near.
A redeemed place.
A place that Satan chose not for himself, in the midst of the full glories of heaven…yes by a very deliberate choice..
and we, in the face of appalling negatives, by faith, on earth, surrounded by very real opposites, have chosen…yes
God Himself.

Because we are containers of His glory…
God designed this picture of it:
A wooden (representing human flesh) Ark of the Covenant
covered on the inside and the outside with gold, representative of His Kingly glory.
Inside this Ark are the Two Tablets of the Ten Commandments.
This is Jesus life within us, in exactly the same way that Jesus on earth here , as a human, was a container for the Father’s life. He is the actual Law keeper within us.

So how does this affect us?
How does this affect us? Are you kidding? Nothing that we currently do can ever quite remain the same.

First some ground rules.
Did you notice how Nancy jumped in at the end of Part One and said this
"We have all three levels in us, when we have Christ in us"
and a few weeks ago when I was describing how it was now time for the Third level to be corporately manifested in the Church, she said "The mature Father level has always existed since the Church was born in Acts."
Do you remember me saying it is just as Ezekiel said...Wheels of prophetic outworking within wheels.
I describe this more in the Third Level audiomessage part 1 see picture link on my blog.
The arc , and probably the most important arc that Nancy is seeing began at the Cross, has always existed ever since and will culminate in ever increasing glory until the return of Jesus.

What I am declaring is quite specific and is no different , but perhaps stronger,with more clarity, than both Graham Pulkingham and later John Wimber. God's tide is no different than a gradually rising incoming sea tide. It comes in and goes out in individual waves, but the net effect increases until hightide is reached.I speak of the revelation of the Church, both local and corporate, which in the Spirit have little to differentiate them.

Something ,as I have stated repeatedly on my blog, of unique importance happened around 1906 as a man called Evan Roberts lay , conducting meetings, face down on a Welsh chapel floor. Yes, the return of the Holy Spirit supernatural form of Christianity returned in Wales,The Black Forest and Azusa St, but something even more incredible was happening. It was the birth of a Church actually beginning to function corporately, and not just as a man in a pulpit pulled strings. This was the Order of the Holy Spirit.The Order of heaven. A manifestation of the all but forgotten heavenly realm that Jesus Our High Priest moves in, the Melchizedek order of Hebrews chapter 7.


These sort of waves, only God knows about. Specific historic timings in God.

What Nancy is talking about is our foundation.
The Cross favours all or it favours no one
Jesus died to bring absolutely everyone back into a full and complete restoration to God the Father.
"The Fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in My Lord (the song from Colossians says)and we are complete in Him." We have everything pertaining to life and godliness in Christ NOW." We don't need to go up for it,that's to bring Christ down, we don't need to go into hell for it, that is to bring Christ back out of His sacrifice. As stupid as it may seem to our left-brains locked into what we can see hear touch and taste....our lives may not look like what we consider is Him....but if we just believe ON Jesus, on the very Power of His Life within us,He has promised to bring us ably to full maturity. It is not dependant on us willing and striving, it is dependant on the Power of His Life to get us there, from wherever we may be now.
Is that not rather cool?
As I stated in Part One, the order, the timing,the way,is entirely up to Him...providing we keep our hearts open to Him and don't as it says...harden our hearts, or allow any root of bitterness to rise up and take us clean out of His plans for us.This is why we encourage one another. Not just with friendly words...but because our words have spiritual power and strength as they come from the Holy Spirit.
As insane a thought as watching a cell divide and so develop into a complicated human Body....I mean the initial division doesn't look anything like it will look...so in the Spirit, our initial experiences may seem to be of absolute irrelevance to what we're aiming for. But that is just the nature of this present universe!!!!
The second ground rule
In every church, however dire,even the ones that have no idea about the gospel based on the finished work of Christ and not of works.....somewhere even there, is the stubborn "twinkler" in God who has somehow in this parched desert environment,reached full maturity in God...though he or she is blessed if she can tell why....they just...well....and tears fill their eyes at this point.....are in love with God...you see.

I know the Holy Spirit is a gentleman etc, and doesn't force Himself on anyone....yet I have noticed , because He only sees a full complete work of Christ at the Cross...He does tend to ignore the religious restrictions and mindsets of His people. Quite often He shocks those with little or no faith, byanswering their prayers and absolutely clearing someone's body of cancer. This is because when you are All powerful, and a full and complete annhihilation of all the Devil's works has been accomplished by the Son, Your co-worker at the Cross....it is terribly easy , by accidentally flicking your finger a bit too much, to 150% answer someone's prayer when they are only in faith for 10%. This is what is meant by He is well able to accomplish far above what we can even dream or think.

The power of the Word and faith over decades seems to have sufficient power to bring on even those who have spent their life kicking and screaming against loss of control, and baptism in the Holy Spirit, such that even they too reach an incredible maturity. It's just that the original plan for the Church was that this take 3, 4,5 years and not 70. If the disciples took only 3 years, what is possible in the Holy Spirit according to Jesus phrase "Greater things than these shall you see".

So the Holy Spirit is continually ignoring any first and secondlevellers plea for the quiet life, and rudely sends thirdlevellers in whose job it is, as it says in Isaiah, to stir the nest of the eagles, that they may be pushed out and forced to find their wings.

In general the Holy Spirit ignores all man made traditions and ideas of what Christians think Christianity is, to continually get believers to read of their position in Ephesians chapter 1 and 2, and in Colossians and Romans. He even gets the complete Bible to be read out in Anglican Churches. And gradually at least some start to get the hang of the radical stuff that Jesus has done for us.

The third ground rule
What is meant by a first, second or third level church?
Well according to the Tabernacle picture, a church that does not accept it's need for the shed blood of Jesus on the Cross to re establish and reconnect people back to God the Father, does not understand the brazen altar at all, and as such have not even begun to enter the real Presence of the Living Lord.
They are doing acts of religion, but the reality is not inside them, in their hearts.We have to ASK Jesus in.
No I am talking about the three personal and corporate stages of maturity as outlined in 1 John 2:12ff "Children, young men,fathers." This is spiritual development , not age.
It is not possible to have a church full of people at one level, nor, as in life, desirable.It is not like a school. No , I am talking "destination".
Imagine buses. Say London ones : Watford, Golders green , Marble Arch,Waterloo station,say. ie going south. So you wish to get to Waterloo, but your bus only takes you to Golders green (incidentally it's Jewish).
A first level church will only take you as far as evangelicalism. Faith in Christ. A basis of faith for living.
A secondlevel church can either like Keswick, point you to the exchanged life, or be charismatic, and teach you functionally about entering into, and moving in the Power of the Spirit.They are rarely both, I have found.
A thirdlevel church, has as its end goal, mature sons of God. Now, as we will see, every other level will claim they do this...because no one likes to think of themselves as immature....but the Holy Spirit will soon find you out if you are faking it.
So, I recommend looking into the destination on your church wall...it will save future frustration.
The fourth ground rule
If you have ever read the Intercessor magazine produced by the people Norman Grubb was with called Zerubbabel, or if you have read my blog " 080808 On,now,to the third level" you can be excused for mistaking "the independent self" teaching and Christ as me in my form, for the third level.
This is NOT so. Sorry. The believing of these things into being is equivalent to the reckoning that goes on in Romans 6 and 7. It is NOT Romans 8,9,10 11 and 12....which actually, as Nancy points out with Norman, IS the third level.
The third level is like Ephesians, where you have spent Chapters 1 to 5 being matured into a position of KNOWING who you are in God. Then ON that basis....and only that basis....you move into battle and intercession as described in Ephesians 6. The THIRD level is the Poured Out Life for Others. You can have all the theory...but if the "fruit" of John 15 is not popping out the end of your branches...well, you ain't got it....or else, as it says, you are going through another season of pruning.

By the third level, you are not allowed your little quirks anymore,(quirks being what you personally like to believe in because it suits you. Jesus is King, and He decides what you get to believe in.)
You have to be what Smith Wigglesworth calls Word and Spirit.
If before, you were exchanged life....but had great hangups about Toronto...and you were blowed if you were going to stagger about looking silly....and you were going to remain in control at all costs....
Guess what?.....You can forget that! The Holy Spirit is coming to tickle you....so you lighten up!!
If before you were charismatic...with a particular predilection for funny tic noises and movements at strange times.......well, you're going to be learning about the Exchanged life, that you've skilfully avoided up until now....hmmm.....BIG TIME.

How can you tell a 2nd level church ?
The easy thing would be one sentence here. Read Jack Fortenberry's "Corinthian Elders",Darin Hufford on Free Believer's Facebook blog, and Stephanie Macentire. They have all done an excellent job at nailing the externals of 2nd level churches. They don't call it that, but that's what it amounts to.

There are two types. Some that are really quite happy and will remain as they are for years, maybe forever. Some, like Havant, or Rob Rufus's church in Hong
Kong "City Church International" are genuine "seeking the Lord as the face of the God of Jacob type churches". Perhaps they are TWOPLUS. If the hunger is genuine, you just know they are going to meet with God as a Church, as indeed He is doing.
TWOPLUS churches are interesting because certain Thirdlevel facets are already arriving.

I hope it's not too much exposure to say Havant are already pretty dead to "ministries". In the third level you just are ministry...so you don't bother ever talking about it.Most people in Havant are extremely prophetic...but they don't talk about that with anyone. Rather they talk about opening up wells of healing...that is the current faith challenge. In Havant, leaders are not always prominant at all.Christine and I spent 8 or 9 months not knowing John and Wendy Wilbraham were the pastors.There is a very high participation level. These are all good features.The best meetings are the Key of David meetings.I feel slightly less like a kamikazi suicide bomber in these when I bring some snippet of what I'd really like to share lots about.

You have to go through the young men reckoning stage to get to be a thirdlevel church.Many churches have made the charismatic realm a dead-end, with no vision for ever going further.These I am calling 2ndlevel churches.The destination on the church wall is 2nd level only .

First and secondlevel churches have this feature. Control.
They are still to some extent absolutely locked in their left-brains.Locked into step by step thinking. Pulling strings. They're frightened God won't show up, so they won't allow Him to be God.

Related to this, but by far the biggest feature underneath everything, they are still locked in the delusion of the independent self. This is the lie that the devil sowed in Genesis 3:5. that if you just take of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil you will be like gods....able to be self-running beings in your own right. It sowed the lie about the Father being a rather distant angry God who doesn't really love us nor want the best for us, which has remained inside us for millennia. And it failed to say that there is no independent position anyway, so we switched by default to being run by Satan himself....for as Bob Dylan sang...we gotta serve somebody....and we became containers for another deity, little d....the devil.

2ndlevel churches universally don't want to hear this....and consequently cannot take on board huge sections of New Testament scriptures. They are like the multitude listening to Jesus message "Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood you cannot have life within yourselves." And nearly everyone withdrew saying "This is a hard saying". This is the gospel of the Exchanged Life that very few want to hear. (Read Sylvia Pearce "Two deliverances at the Cross)

2nd level churches, in my experience, spend little time in Romans, Colossians and Ephesians. They have little or no overarching revelation on these, so therefore cannot begin the reckoning process needed for them to break into the third level. "Break in" is a good phrase, because it describes the energy needed as violent men/women of the Spirit, to take the Kingdom by force.

2nd level churches believe that Romans 6 and 7 is a repeat of Romans 3,4 and 5, which it isn't, it describes instead a new phase entirely.

Relationships are enormously affected by these lacks, because by not knowing properly who they were, and who they now are, they are unable to fulfil the scripture "henceforth we see no man after the flesh"...for their entire walk is to see people after the flesh, as independent beings.

I began part One describing John the Baptist very deliberately. Charismatic pioneer ministries today like Morris Cerullo, Rheinhard Bonnke, David Hathaway, Youth With a Mission, all stride the globe at a rate of knots, leading people into 2ndlevel revelation. It is true to say they almost bust a gut doing so, while secretly being very frustrated that so few are out there helping them.

Third level ministry is of such a higher order, that asJesus said about the Kingdom as to John the Baptist, so it is to the current "flatout" ministries....."the least of these is greater".


Why? Morris Cerullo's gospel, Benny Hinn's gospel, only talks about salvation and deliverances.
Well, you can deliver someone and then 7 times as many devils can come back in. But the thirdlevel gospel gets the root....Jesus said "I came to lay the axe to the root".

So as fast as Winkey Pratney(YouthWithAMission training course) is training up a friend of mine who came into Bible House Emsworth with me later, just as fast this lad is marrying, getting divorced, and having to completely rebuild his life, because at no point....even in all the subsequent Word of Faith teachings of the Copelands which he attended, were the real roots of the gospel explained or preached to him.

Out of my whole Live in Community Bible College I attended, very many have divorced already, and even a surprising number are dead. It is a very dangerous thing to half build the Tower of God. We expose ourselves to ridicule and open ourselves to much danger spiritually.

2ndlevel Christianity does not work. It is flawed. Even in the time of Israel, all of them were intended to go right into the Land, not die in the Wilderness. 2ndlevel Christianity was NEVER meant to work....it was only ever meant to be a through stage to get to the third level.

If you are a 2ndlevel leader it is exhausting, because nobody reaches the stage where they take your place as a father ministry. This leaves only one option:install a leadership that you can trust while you remain at the top of the pyramid.Who can you trust? Well on the one hand it's the blessing of God that your kids have followed you into the Kingdom....but it's quite another to say they should be given positions over the same work....and especially if you are still the string puller at the top.And where do you get the idea that YOU do the installing anyway? A man's gift makes way for itself. All a ministry is, is the grace ability to move people on inthe Spirit by transplanting Christ, transplanting Word. What's this CEO corporation you are building anyway?

So you are left with a bunch of unmotivated disappointed people who believed Christianity should work, but plainly doesn't, and now you have to work twice as hard motivating them to keep coming. Ofcourse huge numbers come in the front door of the church and walk straight out the back.

2ndlevel churches don't get the Cross and the Communion as Sylvia Pearce has shared.
If you are in a 1st or secondlevel church watch the Communion closely. Outside the revelation of the Holy Spirit it is almost impossible to maintain the right tone with the Communion.

It either becomes extremely heavy and as in Transubstantiation in Catholic churches...possibly very weird indeed...if not connected to simple faith....
or as in most new Protestant independent churches...an incredible levity bordering ludicrous.There will be an appreciation of the Blood of Jesus, but nearly no revelation at all on the Body of Christ.
Why?
This Body revelation (see Two deliverances at the Cross article by Sylvia Pearce June 2010 on my blog.) is precisely the missing ingredient which takes you on to the Third level.

Likewise 2ndlevel churches have no real idea how to maintain the wonderful Presence of the Lord in meetings, when outside. There is a similar kind of effect to Communion goes on. Struggling not to be too spiritual, nor to revert back to the flesh.....(it's an awkward time)

when ofcourse once your interior believing has changed in the third level....you are fully convinced of who it is living your life AND YET

it's not theory, because for some months ,years,decades you have learned to distinguish between "independent believing" and believing in your new life as Christ as you....having your senses trained as mature people ....

In the 2ndlevel , because you do not know who you are with any confident assurance, you put intolerable pressures on your congregation, on your spouse, your children, all those around you.

You spend way too much time organising outreaches not realising your extreme Body Odour is making people run a mile.

2nd level churches arrange house groups or cellgroups of people that normally would not be seen dead together. In one sense this is good discipline, to learn to relate to those you would not ordinarily be with. On the other hand, if you taught the gospel properly, so that as Paul said....I looked for Jesus crucified among you....and by this time, that everyone knew in the Spirit that they
have all died with Christ and that
it is not them who live, but it is Christ who lives within them....
such a savour of Christ is now swirling around...
like in the best Key of David meetings...

that you actually do want to spend the rest of eternity together like the Fisherfolk Community with Graham Pulkingham.

I was in a community where , at the highpoint there were 30 all together in a standard three storey house in Emsworth. It fell to me to build the rabbithutches...then using much of the same technology I built 3 x 2 bunkbeds for us lads. OK, we were all cramped together....but our hearts were never melded, so one person's bunk could have been a million miles away. We had separate existences because we were a 2ndlevel church...so none of us knew who we were yet.

2ndlevel churches are filled with political intrigue. They are pyramid shaped with a pastor at the top.The devil only understands pyramids. God the Father builds open relationship families.
2ndlevel churches have hidden and open structures. They have pecking orders.

1st and 2ndlevel churches have a reality problem. This becomes more intense, not less after having been baptised in the Spirit, because you now know for certain that God exists, and you are familiar with His actual Presence. Then like Peter at the Transfiguration, you have to go down in the valley again and face all the problems in the real world. Romans 8 does not deny the real world....the persecutions , the sufferings, the problems. Rich Novek's series of posts in May on my blog are excellent on this:
Seeing God only. No more compartmentalising. All of life is His unfolding plan.Even those "drawings"and "pulls" you're not telling anyone about.It's Him, not in the sense that He is doing the drawing...for as James says God tempts no man....but He means for us to face choices....it is not outside our "earth curriculum".


What do we desire? It is legitimate to own up to what is pulling us....but what do we do with it? This is seeing God in everything. We proclaim the truth about what God has done for us in the midst of "how it looks" to our eyes. We allow the Genesis figleaves to be ripped away. We allow our shame to be covered by Jesus all sufficient Blood Covering, but we go further , believing on His very Life to birth in our being His very life...which isn't just the absence of a particular sin.....it's so far the opposite...that when later we face say a roomful of people with "stealing" problems...we irradiate them with the grace glory of Jesus own" giving" kind of life.



Helen Rubio made a fantastic point (see her message Helen Rubio and the Russian Dolls on my blog).
She made the point that she doubted if we could go a lot further in advancing in worship in what is called the 3rd heaven...without going a lot further in our daily walk. Ofcourse this is said very much from a 2ndlevel framework.

The truth is.....you bettya! 2ndlevel worship is so bowed down by shame, and people wrestling with their feelings of inadequacy, because nobody has preached to them what Paul is actually writing, and what Jesus is actually saying that....yes there is a huge ceiling on our present corporate worship.
Learn the 3rd level walk and boy will the corporate level of praise and worship fly!!!!

At the moment the whole thing is a bit "ass about face" because people are trying to get into something Jesus put them in 2000 years ago. They are using the CDs of Hillsongs in a rather manic way, to plug the hole left by rather weird onesided preaching as to the true nature of the human condition.


And they wonder why it doesn't work.
So 2ndlevel churches duly send their worshipleaders off to get more training and anointing....when what they really need is to sit down and "get" the 3rd level teachings.

2ndlevel churches either struggle for cash, or make the gospel look ludicrous by using crass commercial (Jerusalem moneylender) techniques for clawing in the dosh.

The real point of the 3rd level is this. The Holy Spirit Himself brings us to the Romans 12 point of offering ourselves as a sacrifice. In my experience, this is not really a repeated thing...it is a defintion God brings us to.
Without that point being reached, you are going to spend your life as 2ndlevel churches cajoling,pleading,preaching repeatedly,generally pulling your hair out....
but the one thing necessary has never been faced...

they follow one leader
they have a handful of doctrines
they have never decided to be that person offering themselves FREELY in the day of Power
they follow man not God
they have never heard anyone preach many of the doctrines in the NT
they certainly have never heard one message on hebrews 7 about the Melchizedek order
they still think if you give money to God you'll run out
they've never grown up and they never intend to grow up
for faith comes only by "hearing"(gaining a spiritual capacity to hear) and hearing by the Word of God.
they live in cliques and sects.
they relegate all NOW words of God like Martha to the day of resurrection

they are 2ndlevel
Cindi Estep and Francois Du Toit like this.
Francois Du Toit check out Athanasius on the Incarnation, http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath-inc.htm#ch_1
Yesterday at 12:12 · Chris Welch thanks Francois will do
Yesterday at 12:22 · Cindi Estep Wow Chris! I will read over again a time or two, maybe three or four! Much to absorb here....To see Him in everything! Blessings ♥
Yesterday at 13:11 · Chris Welch Think I will too Cindi
Yesterday at 17:13 · John Madden thanks Chris and Joanne
19 hours ago · LikeUnlike ·

Part One of How can you tell a 2nd level church ?- (and how, thankfully the Holy Spirit completely ignores the restrictions) Chris Welch

>

from a Facebook note this week....
The Kingdom Comes
In the beginning of the Kingdom there was a lone prophet called John, standing in the wilderness sent to proclaim its coming.
Jesus said of John, of the sons of men there is none greater, but even the least in the Kingdom would be greater.
There was nothing greater about the apostles. They were all ordinary guys. What made them "greater" than John was that this was "the time appointed" for the activation of the Kingdom of God through the "0n" switch that was the manifest life of the second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ who grew up in Nazareth.

The three training years with Jesus was a collapsed form of the complete revelation that is
the revelation of God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Anybody who has anything to do with God as one "willing" and "hungry" will find themselves on a kind of Divine seminary course where God will transplant into you
in different times
in different ways
in different orders
over different lengths of time periods
in different , unique manifestations
the revelation of the God of Abraham - God who is our faith and justification apart from works, and our introduction to the Melchizedek order and the faith life in general
the revelation of the God of Isaac- which is the grace manifestation of supernatural wells of salvation and power - the powers of the age to come - baptism in the Holy Spirit and anointings- some we have seen- many wacky ones still to come
the revelation of the God of Jacob - where God takes you on deeper supernatural roads - but where He deals with the very root of your identity - where like Jacob also - the most profound hunger takes place in you to want to be "of that eternal Company who seeks the face of the God of Jacob AND YOU PREVAIL - having your name, your root identity completely changed by a new revelation of the Cross.

Churches,assemblies,groups of Christians are no different.
The most helpful picture of this is given by Ezekiel when he describes the workings of God, the very atmosphere of his functionings, as WHEELS within WHEELS.

If you are in a church you are somewhere in this route march at a corporate level.
Historically we are somewhere in this arc of revelation too. But this is on a global, much wider fulfilment.

It is hopeless. from a perspective of justification to compare John the Baptist with the Kingdom.
His unique role was to round up the previous order and announce the new.
It is hopeless to look at a 1700s saint, praying for 6 months with fasting, for an inner confirmation of salvation, to draw any firm conclusions about our commitment and his or her commitment. the fact that they were prepared to stand alone - to stick out among their peers- to seek God with desperation at a time when most of London were drunkards and brawlers....is an amazing comment on who they were.

But, that, at least in the living part of today's church, we don't now have to do that, but simply respond to a gospel message, is just a comment on how the faith level for an experience of salvation has risen over the 300 years since.

Church history IS NOT the account of God’s failure.
I wrote to someone the other day that the "apparent" failure of Church history is not failure at all really.
God has a Divine filter system called His Son Jesus. Church history, like a massive Romans 7 sweep, is a record of us trying to "do" Christianity. Largely, it hasn't passed the Jesus filter test. But without the "trying" we would never have found what DIDNT work.

The Divine seed of the gospel of the revelation of Jesus Christ, had after its initial blooming, to fall again into the ground in order to rise again in a completely unhindered form. For as free as the initial churches were, including the penetration by Paul and others into huge swathes of Asia Minor, India,Africa,and Europe, the seeds of the original outward form: Judaism were still present.

In the Old Testament and on into Jesus own life in Judea, we are presented with both:
the pure streams of revelation coming through the main Biblical chracters
as well as the BAD things, even in the heroes such as David, Noah, and Moses.
We see also, later in Israel's history the "mad desire" to have a King,to be like other nations, to succomb again to Pyramid living. "It's not you they have rejected Samuel, it is I the Lord"
We see the structures, the strictures...the complicated adherences to "tithing dill, mint and cumin" while missing altogether simply looking after those around you. All this Jesus railed against.

So, Church history, far from being a foundation Pillar for Dawkins-style atheism, should be seen in the context of Jesus' own parable.
The (good)Farmer sows His seed in the field, then an Enemy comes at night and plants his wicked seed.In this case the seed of "earning your salvation","works religion". Counter-intuitively, both seed types are to be left in the same field to grow up together. Why? Because of the law that "by these fruits shall ye know them". In other words, because of this law of outer manifestation of inward realities,the contrast would be EVEN more stark than if they were in separate fields, and by it, the good seed becomes even more resilient.
This same methodology has been used on Jewish history. The very God-hatred that is centered on the Jew for bearing the Name of God through history, has meant that when they leave their furnaces of affliction - be it pogroms in Russia or Ausschwitz or wherever scattered....normal life is a doddle...so they rise to the cream of the crop in intellectual life, creative media, science,educatiion and government. The very idiocy perpetrated against them as they stand for God's Name and calling in the Earth, actually aids the fulfiment of those same prophecies given millennia ago. This is the Joseph principle we see in his life in Genesis, rising instead of falling, to become 2nd in command in Egypt itself.
Does this mean we should continue persecuting God's natural Israel just so they are more able to fulfil scripture? No way!Have you seen the equally valid prophetic scriptures which describe the end of those who lay a finger on Israel? Look them up.

The Death of the Church Seed
So the revelation of Christ as expressed through "the Vision of the Glorious Church,His Bride" had, itself to go into the ground and die.
Every trace of good idea.

Tradition of man.Way of man.Theory of what Christianity was.Human tendency to go down into Egypt and borrow a set of steeds for going out and doing battle humanly...
had to crash down in failure as it collided with some immutable verses of scripture
"Not by might, nor by power but by my Spirit" says the Lord
"Neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem shall they worship Me, but in time to come people will worship in Spirit and in Truth."
and of the final cry as the capstone is heaved into place with the shouts of "Grace to it, Grace to it".

And in the midst of the middle ages rubble , the very first glimpse of a stalk broke through the surface of the parched spiritual desert. Just as hard as it is to imagine that 2 merged and rapidly dividing cells can ever form themselves into a human being, so it is hard to imagine that from a simple declaration of faith from Martin Luther....that we are justified by faith alone....could be the signal throughout the Earth for a return of the spiritual tide.

And little by little in God's timing dashes of revelation have been coming down out of heaven. With each revelation comes a tearing, a breaking away from the mediaeval atrocity that the church had become.

What is the nature of this revelation? It is the UNENCUMBERED heavenly blue print that is the fulfilment of the Word Jesus prophesied...they shall worship in Spirit and Truth. Because, like Paul's prefiguring writings, the teachings and revelations come pure out of heaven
they don't come by Man
they are not tainted with University degrees
they are not infested with ecclesiastical baggage
and they are above all quite simple, but contain within them the Power of God.
They contain the very means needed to get us from stage A to the next stage B.

How is this described in the book of Hebrews? Paul talks of the "Heavenly Tabernacle".

The heavenly Tabernacle
Christians through lack of revelation, think of the Tabernacle as an old Testament Pattern that Jesus fulfilled and did away with.
When, as recent key of David meetings have been revealing, the heavenly Tabernacle is God's House. It's where He's always dwelt. The earthly Old testament pattern was a rather weak and weedy graphic example of the heavenly original.

I insert this paragraph about David Swan's "Moving Into the Holy of Holies" not because I learned this information through him. I ,like many in our generation have had to learn by gleaning what we could from third level ministries who could squeeze through the filter system of a UK charismatic movement run in the main by clever leftbrain souls who unfortunately came into a leadership vacuum before they had actually progressed far in the Spirit themselves. But better they did, and hold the thing together while we were learning, rather than the even more hidebound denominational systems on the Continent of Europe.I picked this one up off a RiverCamp bookstall last summer. (This year Heidi Baker will be among those speaking) This book is rare in that perhaps even more than the George Warnock material, it captures just about every Bible picture and reference to the three stages of growth. See also this post from the book
If you've asked Jesus into your heart, then today you have to do with the heavenly and first and only real version.....the True Tabernacle not made with hands. Each piece of furniture represents a piece of pure revelation that has been given by the Holy Spirit in His time scale, at the appointed time, to those hungry for the Now Word of Jesus in the Earth.
Martin Luther and others uncovered Faith apart from works: the First and Only way of entering God's House through the work accomplished by Jesus at the Cross.The Brazen Altar.
Next came the Anabaptists who rediscovered Water baptism by immersion for believers only. This is God's pattern for baptism as represented by the Laver...where we are washed clean...both in baptism as the outward sign and inwardly by the "washing of water with the word".

Francois DuToit has been writing a version of the Bible as “mirror”. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=403954118018&comments
Mirror is the Laver which shows us the Jesus who now lives inside us and as we behold this Jesus that is the mirror of the Eternal Jesus at the right hand of God the Father, so we are changed from one degree of glory to another. See my blogpost here to learn more:
As Terrible as An Army with Banners
Beyond these two pieces which are in the Outer Court, is the second area of the tabernacle: The Holy Place. There is no natural light here. The only light is the candlestand. This whole area marks out the area of the supernatural church.
This was marked in history at the beginning of the 20th century with the birth of the Pentecostal church, then as the ideas began to break into the traditional denominations, what came to be known as the charismatic movement. This later became the new independent churches who explored these areas more thoroughly.

Gradually, as first Pentecostal forerunners like George Warnock found in the 1950s, http://www.georgewarnock.com/
as Gene Edwards was to discover as an evangelist at the same time
http://www.geneedwards.com/autobiography.shtml
then later The Move under Sam Fife,
as Mother Basilea Schlink was discovering in their unique non-charismatic Lutheran community in Darmstadt,
as Ed Miller found as he sought God alone, as a missionary in Argentina,
and as Norman Grubb found as he in turn tried to define in his books what it was that marked out the bible men of history and present day extraordinary Christians in many books culminating with “Yes I am” linked to on my blog…..

THERE WAS A WHOLE UNDISCOVERED THIRD AREA or LEVEL that the present day church knew nothing of corporately…but that individuals had been entering into for generations, and sometimes leaving writings for us, namely Jacob Boehme, Fenelon, Madame Guyon, Brother Lawrence and so on and so on.
What are the shortcomings of the secondlevel church ? Part Two looks into this.
Updated 23 hours ago · Comment ·LikeUnlikeJames N Sally, June Melanson and Cindi Estep like this.
Cindi Estep Ms. Estep is longing for Mr. Welch to enlighten her more as he shares this revelation of Truth....You are One of the reasons that I have come to Know such wonders. You are a Father♥
Yesterday at 13:38 · LikeUnlike · Nancy Gilmore We have all three levels IN us when we have Christ in us.
Yesterday at 14:00 · LikeUnlike · 2 people · Chris Welch Shhhhh Nancy that comes in part Two
Yesterday at 14:00 · LikeUnlike · June Melanson LOL
Yesterday at 14:11 · LikeUnlike · Cindi Estep Nancy, some of us are just now finding such out. I stand in Wonder at it all...Love you Sis♥
Yesterday at 14:20 · LikeUnlike · Nancy Gilmore :))) heeeheehe.... got to watch out for 'that' Chris... LOL! ♥ - 'cause he knows the final revelation IS Christ, all in all! However, it remains to be seen just exactly HOW Christ is the all in all, but nevertheless, He IS.
Yesterday at 14:37 · LikeUnlike · Cindi Estep Amen Nancy my Dear One♥
Yesterday at 14:43 · LikeUnlike · Cendee Crawford Total Higher Conciousness...the Mind of Christ ♥ ♥ GLORY!!! The fullness of the Deity ♥
Yesterday at 14:49 · LikeUnlike · 1 person · Judy Lawrence Trabernacle,yes I have heard this word in my Spirit.
More please.
Yesterday at 15:38 · LikeUnlike · 1 person · Jamie Weeks Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles. Outer Court, Inner Court, Holy of Holies. David's Tabernacle without walls. The Ark of the Covenant. Are you by chance talking about US, my dear friend? :D
Yesterday at 23:50 · LikeUnlike · 2 people ·

Barbara Rogerson finds her new identity and experiences new anointing

I'd like to share more from Barbara Rogerson's life story.The previous chapter describing the pioneering house churches in the 70s is here.

Real stories are always best. The problem with "charismatic stories" is that while the spiritual experiences are usually real enough, the very real context....in fact I would say the whole reason we live our lives in this kind of universe...is simply glossed over.

I see this even more since Rich Novek's posts last month.
Barbara's whole story to date can be found in 23 chapters here. Simply go to her archives on the right and click on My Story and you will get all 23 chapters in reverse order.___________________

MY STORY Chapter 14 by Barbara Rogerson - From Darkness to LightDuring the time timescale of the last chapter there were a couple of significant times of enlightenment that began to make a difference in my life. The first came in 1982 at a time when I felt so inadequate and depressed. I was looking out of my bedroom window when I saw a lady from my church walking down the street looking so happy and ‘together’ and striding out with great confidence. It had an immediate affect on me, why could I not be like that? I now know that I was only seeing at the appearance level, but at that point I just sank to my knees and cried out to God. I suddenly realised that my dialogue with God was coming out as a poem. The poem has since been a help to me and many others and was later published as an “editor’s choice” in a book of poems called “Praised Voices”.

THE MIND OF GOD

O my God, why do you leave me in despair and desolation?
When all around is seemingly glory and triumph
The very essence of life appears and disappears
As though they were just puppets, on a string
You mock me, You tantalise me, You hide your face.
Is it a game that you are playing?

Child, you have forgotten your prayers of yesteryear
What, me give up the things I hold so dear?
Lord, you know I want to change
But, how can You and I achieve the impossible?
It only seemed impossible to you
Because you did not have My infinite mind.

Remember the prayers that went unanswered at the time
The prayers you prayed that were impossible for me
For had I answered in the way that you had wished
Those other prayers of yours, the most important ones
Would have vanished like a vapour in the sea
And never would have brought you the life you long to see.

My love for you is more than just a fleeting feeling
To lose you would have been too great a price to pay
Your suffering has been your greatest treasure
To keep you close to me so come what may
THE MIND OF GOD WILL BE INSTILLED WITHIN YOU
So that you can live the life for which you pray.

Barbara Rogerson 1982

I continued to seek God and for a long time spent many night hours unable to sleep. I was getting more desperate and as written in the closing lines of the last chapter, I came to the point where I felt that nothing was working, God didn’t seem to care and it was too hard to go on living like this another day. I told God in the middle of the night that I was finished, I was giving up. Whereas to me it felt like the end, it was really the beginning of some new enlightenment on my journey. I clearly heard God say, “That’s all I have ever wanted of you, for you to give up your self effort and striving and allow me to be your life” He told me I was dead and it was only His life in me that would make a difference. I ran upstairs, woke Alan and said “I am dead, God’s told me I am dead!” Alan’s reaction in his sleepy state was to say “Oh! Yeah” and turned over and went back to sleep. I was excited for the first time in months and knew that something significant was happening, even though at that time I did not understand the living out of this revelation. I said to God, “I will not do another thing until I know that it is You doing it”.

On a practical level all I knew to do was give up all my activities and I stopped going to meetings and just waited on God. Initially I stayed in bed for two days as I did not know how else to stop, or what to do next. It looked like a breakdown but it was God’s way of getting me quiet. One enlightened preacher came to visit me and prophesied that as I came to the end of myself God would use my experiences to help others. This meant nothing to me at the time.

Our fellowship had grown quite large by now and we had been involved and deeply committed for 10 years. However this was also the time when there were many splits and breakaways in the house church movement worldwide and ours was no exception. We were pioneering, it was a time of learning and mistakes were made, particularly in the area of shepherding. I need to say that our then leader has since publicly acknowledged the mistakes while also recognising the good and positive that came out of this time. I know that God uses everything and nothing in our experience is ever wasted. All is a growing process. We felt that we needed to break away and see what God was saying to us personally.

We were for some time alone and without ‘formal’ fellowship but this was the time when God started to make Himself real to us in a new way and also the time when I started to really listen. A very simple lesson came one day when sitting reading in the garden. I was reading the book “Rees Howells – Intercessor” and began to think that I could never do what Rees Howells had done and the old condemnation soon reared it’s head. God clearly said, “I’m not asking you to do that at this moment, you only need to do what I ask you to do.”

One day we planned a visit to a preacher/friend of ours who lived about 2 hours drive away. On the day all my old fears came back as I started to think about the journey and we left late as I had spent so much time in the bathroom due to anxiety. We eventually made it to our friends house only to find he was in a similar situation being a very anxious and nervous individual himself. When we both shared how we were feeling and why he insisted that it was all an attack of Satan. I did not enjoy my day and when we arrived home late at night I fell into bed feeling as defeated as ever.

The next morning I was standing at my kitchen sink thinking that if Satan had such power to paralyze me and wreck my day, what chance did I have of fighting this. I would always lose. Suddenly the light came on and God said, “You are not meant to fight, you are meant to believe” He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world, 1 John 4:4. Here were Scriptures I had read all my life being made real. Yes, all I was meant to do was believe the truth. The truth that the only power that the enemy had over me was the power that I gave to him through my wrong believing. For me it was a revelation. I then began to see that I was not a depressed person, that I had the Creator of the universe living in me. I might feel depressed but that was not my identity. My identity was Christ in this earthen vessel.

I asked God right there, “ OK, how does this relate to right now?” I was still feeling depressed. God’s answer was to tell me to just do the next thing which happened to be clearing the dishes. In asking again, it was to make the beds. I lived like this for the whole day, taking one step at a time and trusting the next moment to God. I chose to stop seeing myself as a depressed, inadequate and defeated person and started to trust God in a new way no matter how I felt or how it looked. He showed me how to take one step at a time, just doing the next thing. I’m sure it would seem very elemental to some, but for me, having struggled in my own strength for decades I learned a lot in those days. As I stopped the self effort struggling and just listened to God He continued to show me through the very mundane activities of life.

One day I heard of an acquaintance who was feeling very low and depressed and I felt to go and visit her. I arrived on her doorstep and felt dumb. All I managed to say was, “Hi! I hear you are feeling bad and I just wanted to tell you that I care.” On the way home after a cup of tea and a chat I felt frustrated when all the things I could have said to her came flooding into my mind and as I questioned God as to why He said “I only asked you to go, and you did, you can share that with her next time”. God was showing me the difference between relying on Him and self effort. I was wanting to run ahead of God and do His work for Him. He knows what is needed and unless we are listening to Him we don’t.

Very soon we had a small group of friends meeting in our home for fellowship and God started bringing various ministry teachers into my life who confirmed all that God was showing me. This was not overnight but over a couple of years. This brought increased healing as I began to believe Galations 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ, but it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me”.

We will see in future chapters the difference this made in my life. During this time there were some dramatic and distressing events in my extended family but they will have to wait until the next chapter.
____________________________


MY STORY by Barbara Rogerson - Chapter 22 - A Moving of the Spirit
During the 90’s there was a very strong influence on many people and churches across the world, namely the “Toronto Blessing”. We were not involved with this as God had us focused on the direction that He had given to us at that time.

It became so widespread, affecting churches and groups of all denominations, congregations, leaders, pastors and vicars alike, young and old, that I began to seek God as to whether we were missing out through not being involved. There were people that thought we were. The ‘blessing’ appeared to be an outer experience but those involved said that they were much more in touch with God and renewed in their spiritual walk and it had increased their hunger for God. I could not deny that God was doing something and He was certainly getting people’s attention and giving them a sign of His power. I had been very involved in the early days of the Charismatic renewal in the 60’s so it was not entirely new to me, but those days were on a much smaller scale as people did not travel like they do now. I did know that I did not have to be actively involved in this ‘blessing’ in order to experience the by-products as I believe that in God we live and move and have our very being. I know that trusting His life in me would bring me into all that God had and desired for me. I know that His life brings us into a day in, day out lived out life of constancy in the Holy Spirit where ‘blessing’ takes on a whole new meaning as Jesus Christ through us strives to see Himself formed in all of created beings. Do hear my heart, I am not in any way speaking out against the “Toronto Blessing” but sharing where I was on my journey at that time.

Moving on in to the new millennium, God proved yet again that we never miss out in this life of faith if we are trusting in Him for He has His times and seasons for everything in our lives.

During the summer of 2001 I was sitting at my computer one day when I received an E-mail from a total stranger who I will call Jenny. Without going into details of the E-mail I wasn’t really sure how it involved me. I replied saying, “Who are you, who do you fellowship with and how did you get my address?” Not friendly at all, in fact I was quite indignant. In that moment I heard God’s voice so clearly it caused me to take notice. I heard God say, “Keep an open mind or you might miss something.” I received a reply from Jenny stating that a ministry package was in the post. Believing that I had heard God speak I was intrigued enough to eagerly await the arrival of the package, but also to know how this person from Ohio had come by my address. I eventually found out that it had come about through Jenny’s contact with a Christian travel agent who knew a friend of mine from the States who had visited with me on a number of occasions. The problem was that my friend who is busy and travels a lot with her own ministry had forgotten to tell me.

It turned out that Jenny was a church pastor and evangelist and she had received a number of prophecies from different sources stating that she would be going to London to minister. The package duly arrived and after being touched and stirred in my spirit when listening to the tapes, I eagerly devoured the accompanying book and could not put it down, finishing it within 24 hours. The only time I have been glad to be stuck in a long traffic jam. I knew that if she was coming to London then I wanted to meet her. Having had nothing more than a word from God and a rising in her spirit, Jenny and her ministry helper, who I will call Joan, had booked on a tour to London where on arrival they were going to part from the tour group, visit some churches and see what God did in the situation. However, due to unforeseen circumstances the tour was cancelled. It was after this event that Jenny contacted the Christian travel agent. Plans had been made for them to stay in a hotel in London and she had made contact with me in the hope that I would go and meet with her giving her a contact in London. I agreed to do this and a date was fixed. This seemed quite easy and straight forward at the time but none of us knew the implications of 9/11.

Jenny and Joan were at the airport waiting for their American Airlines internal flight when the first plane flew into the twin towers in New York City. Needless to say everything was cancelled and nobody knew how long it would be before aircraft would be flying out of the States across the Atlantic again. The priority anyhow was to get stranded people home. As it happened, and obviously after much prayer, the travel agent finally found seats on a plane for about 10 days later. In view of the event money for the hotel stay had been refunded. At this point I suggested to Jenny and Joan that they forget about booking a hotel and come and stay at my house instead. They agreed in amazement as they had never stayed in the house of a stranger before.

I organised various meetings for them both in my home and at various churches that I had contact with. Our Pastor had by then listened to the tapes and the first meeting was in our own church. During ministry time I was prayed for and immediately fell to the floor. Jenny turned and said, “Look at your hands Barbara, they are covered in oil” When I eventually looked, not only was there oil but gold dust too. I had heard of people manifesting gold dust but never oil. It was not something that I had asked for or gone seeking after. I realised in a new way that we cannot put God in a box, He does what He does in spite of us. My husband Alan had the same experience that same evening at a meeting at a friend’s house. We had four meetings that Sunday and the folk at the Russian church which consisted of refugees from the old Soviet Union were really hungry for God and during ministry time they all fell down like dominoes one after the other and most began speaking in tongues. The children fell down too and I knew it was real when I witnessed a baby prayed for and saw his head just fall back on his Mothers shoulder under the power of the Spirit.

I must make it clear that we do not talk about our own personal experience generally but I do so here because it is part of my spiritual journey and was another life changing event. It is not something I can take credit for, or make happen it is down to God. It’s not something I even think about it until it happens and most often it happens during praise and worship times. On asking God why and what it was for in our own lives, for Alan it came as a sign to pray for someone and for me more of a confirmation of something that God had put on my heart, be it a word, a prophecy or to pray for someone. Many times it has just been a confirmation of a real presence of the Spirit. I am glad that I heard God and responded that day just sitting at my computer.

There were 2 incidences shortly after this that I will relate as a picture of how God used this gift. Firstly a Russian Mother asked me if I would pray for her teenage son who was rebelling against God. On agreeing I first wanted to talk to him and ask his permission and on chatting with him it became evident that his studying of science was a hindrance to him believing. I boldly asked him if it would make any difference if God gave him a sign and he said maybe. In faith I held out my hands to him and they were covered in oil and gold dust. He sank to the floor, accepted Jesus as his Saviour and was immediately baptised in the Spirit. God confirmed to me that although the inner life was the most important, outer manifestations do have their place too.

Soon after that I was having coffee in Starbucks when I noticed a family with a very sick looking little girl who looked like she had Leukaemia or something. I suddenly felt pressed to pray for her. In the middle of Starbucks, what was I thinking! Panic rose up and I said to God, “If this is what you want, then give me confirmation”. Suddenly oil appeared on my hands and I knew that there was no turning back. When I approached the Mother she was very sharp with me telling me that her daughter was very sick but I should not worry as it was not catching. I explained that that was not what I was suggesting but I wondered if I could pray for her. She wanted to know who I was and for me it felt like it was getting more difficult by the minute. I told her which church I belonged to and she became very embarrassed and said that she thought that her child would not cope with being prayed for in such a public place. She did however sound very pleased when I asked if she would like my church to pray for her daughter. The following Sunday the whole church prayed for this little girl and I saw that I had been taught another lesson. It was for me to be obedient to God’s promptings and the outcome is entirely His responsibility. I had initially been tempted to think that I had got it all wrong but who knows what seeds were sown. A life of faith is about trusting and believing and taking the next step no matter how small and insignificant it might seem at the time.

So, for the next six years we hosted this lady in our home whenever she came to the UK and organised meetings for her until the time came when I felt that we had connected her up with enough groups and churches for her to be able to make her own arrangements. As far as this story goes I will be wrapping it up and bringing you up to the present day in the next and final chapter. It has been interesting during some of the writing to realise that I have been learning all over again from my own writing. God gives us revelation and then through life experiences causes us to learn to walk in those truths. He changes us from one degree of glory to the next.

As terrible as an Army with Banners. Key of David meeting Havant June 2010

Key of David material June 2010 on the subject of the Army of the Lord with a Youtube excerpt track on the same subject from Early Harvest 1990.

'Who is this that grows like the dawn,
As beautiful as the full moon,
As pure as the sun,
As awesome/terrible as an army with banners?'
Song of Solomon 6:10

Who is this coming up from the wilderness
Leaning on her beloved?"
Song of Solomon 8:5

And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
2Peter 1:19

"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."
Revelation 22:15-17
NASV
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
New International Version (©1984)
Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
1 John 3:2-3

"&c.-Continual beholding generates likeness (2Co 3:18); as the face of the moon being always turned towards the sun, reflects its light and glory."commentary from
http://biblos.com/2_corinthians/3-18.htm
ἡμεῖς δὲ πάντες ἀνακεκαλυμμένῳ προσώπῳ τὴν δόξαν κυρίου κατοπτριζόμενοι τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθα ἀπὸ δόξης εἰς δόξαν καθάπερ ἀπὸ κυρίου πνεύματος.
Literal Greek : We But all unveiled with face the glory of Lord seeing by reflection the same image are transformed from glory to glory just as from of Lord Spirit

Amplified:18And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit.

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If this makes no sense written in left-brain study text format, I'm not sure the actual Key of David meeting itself would have made more sense to someone used to sitting in a meeting with John Stott,Greg Haslam,David Pawson, or Jimmy Graham. But if you are starting to get sensitive to how the Holy Spirit moves, reveals and shapes His kind of meetings you'd have picked up a lot. I bet if you'd have asked anyone there, and some travelled all the way down from London,as they were leaving,"did you consider it worth coming?", many would have been scarcely able to respond. That's not a negative...it's just that Key of David meetings can leave you a bit stunned. "Surely the Lord is in this place." I personally don't like hanging around much after them...because any talk sometimes cheapens what was going on.



And I have to say , sometimes we actually have very little clue until afterwards about how groundbreaking these meetings are in that they mirror the very NOW Word that Christ Himself is speaking into the world Church. Yes, I mean that. It's hardly ever anything to do with our locality, and quite often transcends our nation.



I myself have been given things I had no idea were new chapter headings in the Church. I brought them as led, but have to humbly admit I hardly knew anything about what I was bringing.

Here are two examples

Revelation 3:20 Word from a Key of David Glory Conference which began a whole new chapter

in the church and my own life to do with the revelation of the Father. This still continues...and I mean right now.....



And secondly, last year's Conference which is on a CD somewhere, which was about God rearranging His furniture in the church.....to make His Son have pre-eminance again. This has certainly come out on this blog concerning Pyramid building, The Jesus Manifesto book by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, and not least "Corinthian Elders" by Jack Fortenberry.

Unusually for a Key of David meeting praise was a bit like walking in sticky treacle.(NB...if this happens to you...keep pressing through...because quite often you're pressing through a door that the Devil does not want opened. In this case an enormous Presence of God to do with the Bride as an army with banners coming up out of the wilderness.)

One of the songs we began with had the phrase "Morning Star". I felt by the Spirit that this was being highlighted. Perhaps I did not push this hard enough. The next thing we were onto the image of the Bride at the end of Song of Solomon.

What was the connection?

The connection is above in Song of Solomon 6:10
'Who is this that grows like the dawn,
As beautiful as the full moon,
As pure as the sun,


Morning Star...=Groom..........Bride.......as beautiful as the full moon.



Morning Star
Jesus we know is the morning star. But as I shared with Peter Stott in the meeting, we have completely missed the point of why He is the Morning Star.

If your eschatology (end time view) is restricted to "Jesus , it's rough on Earth and getting rougher, please get me out of here". Then you will view Morning Star as the only thing you can fix your eyes on during the darkest part of the night before dawn, when Jesus will come and rescue you . He is your hope, meaning I cannot stand what's going on here but at least I see that Jesus made it so if I can just keep focussed on Him...He'll see me waving my banner from my besieged fortress rooftop, and scoop me up outta here.

Ern Baxter (1975)blew us renewed Baptists away with
"The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church" does not mean gates are attacking us while we huddle in our little Kingdom castle. He said, he'd never seen a gate jump off its hinges and chase him down the street!



In the same way Morning Star means this. And this is what we fix our eyes upon.

Jesus was the prototype.

Imagine a mug factory. The design mug is the prototype. There is only one of them. A lot of design care and attention gets lavished on this one mug, because once it is finished EVERY SINGLE other mug will be patterned on it.

The existence of the first mug isn't a sad thing.

"Oh I've only got one mug...I'm going to cry."

The existing one mug is a thing that is full of hope. Ha haha...at last we've worked out our pattern....now we're going to have a run of 60 million like it.

In a commercial mug factory they're not pacing up and down wondering if they'll ever get another mug like it. They're sort of matter of fact. Right, we've got the pattern.....so yes we can fulfil your World Cup international order for 60 million by next month.



It's definite. It's a cert.



That's what Jesus as the Morning Star means.

He's the first of a whole NEW DAY of Sons exactly like Him....that He is not at all ashamed to call brethren.



The Christ as us message has this certitude about it.

If Jesus , the same Jesus, is in us as us since conversion...

if the whole stupid idea of us as self-running beings introduced by the devil in Genesis 3:5 turns out to be what it is....a myth

that we are nothing but containers for the deity or spirit/Spirit that we choose



Then the Morning Star to us is a dead cert. We cannot lose. We can only be Him through our personalities, through our bodies, through our minds.



Now settling into this is a process, yes. But it's no harder or more weird than learning to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as He guides us through great meetings. It's no less real than that. And as a Church we've now been doing that for 105 years since Azusa St and the Welsh Revival.

Let's lean on some more verses so that they squirt out some more Spirit juice!
The Greek of 2 Cor 3:18 says
We But all unveiled with face the glory of Lord seeing by reflection the same image are transformed from glory to glory just as from of Lord Spirit
1. There's no veil any more. It was torn in the Temple from top to bottom when Jesus died
2. by reflection...indicates the same Jesus that we have received into us, is the same One whose glory we are beholding.
3. He is working a "from glory to glory" transformation in us. Its not from zilch glory to glory. Its from glory to glory. He is layering glory on us like the French polish layers I put on pianos.
4."As from of Lord Spirit" means some or all of these things: a)the glory that comes from the Spirit of the Lord...it's not ours...we've not earned it...it's not of our doing...and from here on in it's Him as well b) more precisely from that Spirit that was roadtested in the life of Jesus on earth, that Spirit that also raised Him from the dead....a picture here of the Jesus who laid His glory aside, came here fully human like us, restricting Himself to the same sort of equipment that He'd be letting us have....namely the now fully roadtested indwelling Holy Spirit of Power that He had.

2 Peter 1:19 The morning star rises in your hearts
1. Proof verse that we are tracking with the apostles. The same Morning Star of Revelation is the morning star rising from out of the darkness of our own lives. His life in our hearts now empowers us.
2.it is the certitude that when He appears we shall be like Him. This very hope works within us like radioactive material ....friends don't you feel it within you?.....this radioactive hope that is itself a purifying agent.

Song of Solomon gives a picture of FUSION occurring in the wilderness between Bridegroom and Bride
who is this that Grows like the dawn!!!!
that leans on the Beloved

Previously the only sun of righteousness we knew about was God. This runner talked about in Psalm 19 , running across the sky like a Bridegroom. But what have we now? Two of 'em. A church who is like it as well.

Terrible as an army with banners.
At the end of the meeting people took hold of banners to represent this.
I felt by the Spirit to remind people that these banners were a token of what was really going on. God is birthing these banners, these Names of God into us. I know someone is going to say we have all of the Names of God in us. That's true. But I'll think you will find that our own road maps become particular Banners of God in the Body of Christ.
In the meeting I used the example of how David Strutt who had to go throught the awful awful grief and loss of his first wife to cancer....all the while, as a lot of us, perfectly aware that at other times all of us have seen people raised up completely out of cancer situations. We know God can do it.
What worked death for David though has become life for the people of God when he is anointed to share. There is a Banner of God in David's life that wasn't there before.

There are people in the Body of Christ that can do things. They have Apps. Banners.Aspects of the Names of God.
Maurice Smith oozed grace, though in his personal life he knew fearful depression and anxiety attacks.
My friends Ron and Pam Knight oozed hospitality. With them it wasn't "oh what a great time we had round their house".....it was Holy Spirit comfort and strength oozing all round you while you were in their presence. A large number of the church just gravitated there in the 70s.

The verse " out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water" has been nicked by the Pentecostal experience. Also valid....but it's main context in John is the Feast of pouring of the Water during the Feast of Tabernacles, not Pentecost. This is a 3rd level or 3rd Feast picture. It's a mature man and woman in Christ pouring out major flood tides of Spirit stuff through them. The Banners, the Names of God, fashioned in a believer for imparting to a threadbare world. This is a work of the glory to glory just as from of Lord Spirit we read earlier.

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Key of David meetings are not Bible Studies. They are you walking into a 3D High Definition representation of the verse itself. It happens in the Spirit and it remains with you for the rest of your life. Acw.

KEY OF DAVID MEETINGS
Sundays June 6th, July 4th, Sept 5th all at 7pm
* NOTE: no meeting in August *
These meetings are open to friends from other churches locally and beyond as we spend a prolonged time in God's presence and respond to His direction.
KEY OF DAVID CONFERENCE - 'CONSUMING GLORY'

March 2010

CD sets of the messages from Greg Haslam and Peter Stott are available at £10. Please send a cheque to the church office made out to 'Portsdown Community Church'
Church Office: telephone 023 9247 0167
or e-mail: admin@portsdowncc.org.uk

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In the 1980s a song was given that was sung very widely: Joel 2 "And they shall rush on the city, run on the walls." The Holy Spirit was indicating the nature of the mature Body of Christ exercising authority according to Ephesians 6. Many pointed out that this was NOT the nature of the context in Joel 2. The particular army was not the people of God, but one being used by God to exercise judgment.

This is where we need sensitivity to understand when the Holy Spirit is speaking. He never said that Joel 2 was the people of God. He was indicating that the mature Body will have this aspect to it, further underlined by Psalm 149 (see the Airplane song at the bottom of this link)

In this context I also did a track on Joel 2 on my CD. I have made a movie version for You Tube.

Listen in stereo!

Track off Unreleased Double CD Early Harvest:
"JOEL 2" The Plain: ©A. Christopher Welch/Michael Thom, Poem by A Christopher Welch
1990/Music:© A. Christopher Welch based on a chord sequence by John Stevens 1978.
In the shadow of the distant rocks / Across the barren plain / I saw an army approaching swiftly, a people without name / Terrifying was the sight of them, marching without a sound,/ Striding forward purposefully, making for the towns. / They're rushing in like mighty men, yet never break their ranks, / As unannounced as thieves they come, none can cut them back /The sun and moon grow very dark, the Word of the Lord is strong / At last the breakthrough trumpet blasts, awaited O so long. / It is the second anointing, raising dead men's souls /Crashing through all the people's fears, whose faith was filled with holes, / Comforting the afflicted, aligning with the just, / To bring judgement on all rulers, ruled by their own lusts. /
The Almighty power of the Living Word upon a multi-bannered army / Of valiant men expert in war, wreaking God's vengeance calmly, / Knowing the Word of faith to be enough to shatter the Devil's lies / Whose proud boast counters heaven and Christ's Church who he defies. /They appear from nowhere this secret army formed in a hidden place, / Hewn out of humble quarries now joined in smooth embrace / The Son of Man like lightning stands in east and west displayed / For wherever the dead body is there the eagles fly.
Eagle's Flight:© A. Christopher Welch/Michael Thom 'Telstar' type Keyboard Solo: John Daniels All additional Keyboard: Michael Thom Administered by No Name Ltd. 1991
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Chris on Facebook:Modern day example of Joel 2 track
Around the time that Joel 2 was being recorded (see my profile link)Christians were arguing about prophets like Paul Cain.They were saying ref the Army of the Lord it was either false triumphalism or that the Joel 2 army were unbelievers anyway,completely missing what the Holy Spirit was saying.Whether
as indicated there is a specific wave of fulfilment ,the truth of Ephesians 6 as Nancy Gilmore would say,is always true and is cyclic.Today's revelation then ,which does not go down well with Protestants,is that Poland's 1989 breakthrough was a fulfilment of a huge part of the lyrics on my Joel 2 track.Truth was that a whole blanket of prayer/... See moreintercession/Spirit declaration was going up throughout the land in small Catholic prayer groups.Arthur Blessitt says of the countries he passed through,the ones who received him best and who had the greatest appreciation of the Cross was Poland.....
So on one side of the world people were dismembering Paul Cain while the other, God wasn't waiting for prophecy ...He was actually giving a graphic example of Joel 2 authority should people only have the eyes to see...and he was using the vessels no respecting American evangelical would suspect....namely Catholics....which is probably how they missed one of the most staggering events of recent years....a bloodless coup.