Hello everyone!
There has been quite a bit of prophetic activity around ReCh-Wallan over the last few weeks. The meetings of the Schools of the Prophetic at both our churches have been really rich and clearly indicate that God is moving swiftly with His Kingdom agenda. He is clearly making His church ready for a major post-COVID-19 mission assault, if I may use such a descriptor.
There are several key features of this prophetic momentum that is building, and I want to share two of them with you here because it is so exciting and encouraging – and a bit frightening, as well. I will also share more of this in a special “Prophetic Voices” bulletin in the next week or so.
Gospel power is about to be let loose powerfully ...
The Gospel, to be clear, has never lacked power – and it never will. The apostle Paul made this very clear in Romans 1:16 …
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”
So, what do I mean when I suggest that Gospel power is about to be let loose? For many years now I have been deeply concerned that the church, in general, is so willing to settle for a soft Gospel, or an easy Gospel – a “PC” Gospel – that doesn’t offend people with too much truth; a Gospel that doesn’t demand much of us. (Don’t even get me started on the many false Gospels being preached around our nation today.) This soft Gospel is a distorted modification of the actual biblical message. It dilutes the truth of the real Gospel and thereby substitutes its divine power for things like tolerance and inclusion, such that many people are deceived into thinking they are born again because they believe there is a God, and they attend a church somewhere. And that’s basically it - there is no transformation taking place in their lives. They’re almost no different to when they started their ‘faith’ journey. These are what the great John Wesley called “almost Christians”. For many so-called believers today there is no understanding, let alone agreement, about what sin is and the need to repent of it, seek God’s forgiveness; the need to accept by faith the total work of the cross and the unequivocal obligation to turn from a life of sin and live as the righteous ones of God in the power of Holy Spirit. And this is exactly what a soft-Gospel produces.
The real Gospel is being preached properly in many places – praise the Lord. But it is about to be preached so unashamedly, so passionately and so starkly, albeit in grace, that the pent-up power of the Gospel is going to be released from faithful proclaimers now emerging. It may appear to the church at large that a preacher may loose a message the size of a pellet but it will land and its potency will cause a shockwave amongst the harvest fields that are ripe and ready for the taking. The Gospel message will sink deep into culture and its truth will be so pervasive and will cause such deep agitation that lies and deceptions will be exposed along with many kinds of fakery, idolatry and false securities – and many will see this, realise their peril and desperately want redemption.
I am reminded of the conversation God had with Elijah at the cavemouth after he had fled Queen Jezebel’s threats. He felt as though there was no one left who will truly proclaim God’s message, he thinks he is the only one left and feels as though he cannot go on. But God gently says to him, “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:18 ). These were true ones not yet unleashed to speak the word of the Lord without compromise.
There are faithful churches who have raised up leaders in the last few years who are completely unashamed of the true Gospel and who are very aware of its mighty power – the power of God to save – who will begin to proclaim the Gospel and these “pellet size messages and sermons and testimonies” will be shot out of their mouths, and they will land in the lake of our culture and a great redemptive agitation will take place … and a great season of harvest will follow …
FINAL WORD
Black & White
Another prophetic insight this week was an image of black versus white (more in “Prophetic Voices”). A vision of a very clear distinction – the absolute separation between the old life and the new. For people now in the kingdom, the kingdom of light, there is no participating in the darkness ever again. The apostle Paul once said to the Corinthians …
2 Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”
If think we know the answer! And again, this time to the Ephesians and Thessalonians …
Ephesians 5:8 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light …”
1 Thessalonians 5:5 “You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness [anymore].”
These are emphatic statements based on a black and white Gospel. There is clear distinction. There is no doubt. No middle ground. There are no shades of grey when it comes to the Gospel, and no shades of grey for living as the people of God. You are either in the light or in the darkness. These scriptures, and many others, make it clear that, in God, there are absolutes - not accommodations. Holiness is the absolute absolute. It is God’s standard, and we have been called to be holy, as God is holy. The work of the cross was about the absolute redemption available to the human soul trapped in the absolute power of sin. Friends, it is that stark and that real. We were not redeemed by the blood of the Lamb to ever go back to darkness.
There is a day, almost here dear friends, when the holy fire of God will fall upon the church and purge it of sin – God is about to prepare the bride for the Son. There is a day, almost here, when the absolute and uncompromising message of the true Gospel will separate the sheep and the goats as Jesus prophesied in Matthew 25:32-33 (even in the church!). Each one of us is either one or the other – there is no hybrid. There is a day coming soon when every knee will bow to Jesus and will confess Him as Lord – whether they want to, or not. That is the one absolute that will ultimately define every human being and determine their eternal destiny …
Philippians 2:10-11 “… at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
It is time for the church to get her house in order, for there to be no compromise on holiness – we need to keep on learning holiness. Do not listen to the age-old lie that the Gospel, or the Bible, is not black and white. It is – on sin, salvation, Jesus Christ, the Christian life, holiness – and eternity. And, as John Wesley once said, it is time for the people of God to get serious and become “altogether Christians”. This is not the time for any believer to dawdle, dilly-dally, or procrastinate – or to compromise the absolutes of God.
It is far later than you think ...
Hebrews 3:7-8 “So, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, …”
You are loved so much.
Ps Milton