by Michael Clark
A few years ago I was at a Vineyard Church conference in Canada.
The sister in charge of the "ministry team" in the Church took my wife
and me aside and spoke prophetically over
me. I don't remember much about it
other than one phrase. She said, "You will boldly go where no man has gone
before."
Most of us recognize this phrase from the opening monologue of the
old TV series, "Star Trek." I
chuckled when she said it and told her that during the Vietnam war I was
stationed off the coast of North Vietnam on
the USS Enterprise, the aircraft carrier the spaceship
in that popular TV series was named after.
In a way this phrase reminds me of a quote from Alexander Pope,
"Fools rush in where angles fear to tread." Captain James Kirk and his crew were always getting into
impossible situations with aliens
"in ages to come" and somehow by his good fortune and great wits would find a
way out of trouble, learning something more about the far reaches of the
universe in the process.
Paul the apostle wrote to the Ephesian Church and told them of a
precious promise.
. . .even when we were dead in trespasses, (God) made us alive
together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
The verse from
Ephesians quoted above reminds me
of another "treky" of old, one of God's bold ones and HIS "crew."
His name was Joshua. Moses
had just been taken away to die and
be buried by the Lord. Before he
died he was allowed to see the Promised Land with his own eyes "from afar off,"
but he was forbidden to enter. On
the other hand Joshua, one of the two remaining people
who originally came out of Egypt, was taken by the Lord to the boundary
of the new land, the river Jordan. There the Lord commanded him to speak these
words to the new generation of Israel that was about to cross:
When you see the ark of the
covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, the Levites,
bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it.
I believe that in every generation, "every age to come," the Lord
takes a man or even many men and gives them a heavenly vision of " the exceeding
riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
That man or men see something that the
visionaries of the age before
were not able to fully comprehend by the enlightenment that God gave
them. In the Old Testament these men were often called "seers" or "prophets."
They saw something of the riches of God that others were not seeing
and explained to the people what God wanted ALL of His people to see.
Have you ever noticed
the place in the book of the Revelation that Jesus repeats himself seven times?
Seven times! I can't think
of any other place in the Bible where He does this.
And what point is Jesus
driving home by this repetition?
"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
He is saying let ANY man that has a spiritual ear hear.
Hear what? Hear "what the Spirit says," not what the Spirit DID say or
even WILL say, but IS SAYING to the Churches! In showing John "things
which must shortly take place,"
Jesus seems to
be saying the church is becoming deaf to His Spirit.
Some time ago, a brother and I spent a day with a dear old saint
who had seen many things over the years in his "heavenly vision" and enlightened
many of the saints of God along the way by sharing what he saw. As we visited
with this dear brother we shared some of the things
the Lord had been showing us, the next generation, and there was a
resistance in this old saint. What
we shared, though similar, was not the exact same vision that the Lord had shown
him. Even though it dovetailed into
where he left off, he could not see
it. Like Moses, he could only get a
glimpse of the land a far off, but was not able to "cross the river" with us.
This is really tragic, because it does not have to be this way.
So often the wineskin can only stretch so far and if it is taken any
further it will burst risking the loss of its old wine. Because of this Jesus
said, "You can not put new wine in an old wineskin." Men of an earlier
"outpouring" often prove these words of Jesus to be so true,
"And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says,
`The old is better.'" (Luke 5:39, NKJV). It is so hard to let yourself be poured
out like wine, when the vintage of that last move of God was so good and you
have so much invested in what the Lord revealed to you during that time.
In the passage about
the crossing of the Jordan quoted above, notice that
the priests and the ark had to go into the river ahead of the people.
They lead the way, but they only went half way across the river and
stopped. The people were to look
upon the ark as they crossed and actually went into the promised land ahead of
the priests.
I see two things in this. One, there are always visionaries that
God sends out ahead of His people to prepare the way. They take the risks so that others can follow them into God's
new kingdom revelation. These visionaries have often been rejected in the
process. What would have happened if the waters did not part when these priest
carrying that gold covered ark stepped into the river? At the least they would
have looked pretty foolish and at the worst, they might have drowned, becoming
bogged down in the mud and torrents of the flood.
These forerunners are the "breakers" that make the breach in the
walls of tradition that hold others
back from following God. As the Lord told the people, "You have not been this
way before."
I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob, I will surely gather
the remnant of Israel; I will put them together like sheep of the fold, Like a
flock in the midst of their pasture; They shall make a loud noise because of so
many people.
The second thing I see here is this. In the Book of Revelation, John sees the ark of the covenant
IN HEAVEN (Rev. 11:19)! God is
still sending forth the ark of His covenant in a spiritual sense to enlighten
each generation and make a way for them to go further than any man has gone
before. As Paul said, "We NOW dwell in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
We all get to see the ark!
We all get to be enlightened daily by the presence of His Spirit in our lives as
we dwell in heavenly places.
Take the work of the apostle Paul. He was given a clear vision of
the priesthood of the believer and the common access of all saints to the wisdom
and throne of God. He understood
this better than any other apostle and, as a result, he
takes the believer by the hand and walks with them into the heavenly
vision.
No longer is the Holy Place an exclusive local open to only
a few chosen priests. When
Jesus died on the cross it is recorded that the curtain over the entrance of the
holy of holies was torn from top to bottom, making it accessible to all. Now the
mercy seat of the ark is available freely to all. As Peter wrote so vividly,
But you are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you
may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His
marvelous light;
God did not speak through the apostles 2000 years ago and then
become mute when they died as some teach. John wrote, "The spirit of prophesy IS
the testimony of Jesus Christ." Jesus is not sitting up there in heaven, passively watching
us stumble along in the dark, while He kicks back on the veranda and drinks mint
juleps. Jesus is still active via the Holy Spirit, guiding us along the way,
testifying to us and speaking to us as a shepherd to his sheep.
Sometimes He forewarns us of pitfalls in the path ahead and sometimes He just
shares with us the glories of His Father's house. As he promised:
However, when He, the Spirit
of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak
on His own authority, but whatever He
hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
Wow! I find that
exciting! We,
each of us, need not be held captive by the philosophies and
traditions of men, but are free to listen to the voice of God and follow the
Good Shepherd wherever He shall lead us.
HE STILL LEADS HIS SHEEP!
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold
by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
Have you ever gotten a thought as you were praying or reading the
scriptures or even while you were watching a movie or washing dishes, that you
had not heard from the pulpit or read in a Christian book?
All of a sudden you "see" something of a kingdom nature in a whole new
light. THAT is Jesus speaking to you.
As Paul wrote, "yet I show you a more excellent way."
So often what happens next is that you go to "church" and share
this exciting discovery with your fellow believers and you get all these "cock
eyed" looks. You feel like you are in a room full of bug-eyed flounders, so you
go home embarrassed. You feel like
YOU are the crazy one, so you swear to yourself that you will NEVER do THAT
again! You might even get a call
later from the "pastor" telling you, "You were really off on that one!"
Why this reaction? Most
often it is because the Church is blinded by the philosophies and traditions of
men and so it makes void and of no affect the rhema word of God which Jesus
continues to speak to His sheep.
Brothers and sisters, don't let these professional Church leaders
and their adherents "silence the lambs." Keep listening and if you can't find a true friend in Christ
in whom you can confide or like many do these days, a "talk list" on the
internet in which you can share these "pearls" that the Lord is giving you, then
at least write them in a daily journal or diary and go back and read them from
time to time, encouraging your heart as you see just how far the Lord has taken
you on since you first heard His voice began to write what you heard.
Remember, we are in those "ages to come" that Paul wrote to the
Ephesians about. "(God has) made us sit together in the heavenly places in
Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His
grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
As Jesus said,
15 "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know
what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I
heard from My Father I have made known to you.
16 "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that
you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever
you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
(John 15:15-16, NKJV).
May God richly bless each one of you as you seek His face.
Michael
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