Judges, Kings & Prophets

Isaiah 1:13, 16-18 (NLT) -

Stop bringing me your meaningless gifts; the incense of your offerings disgusts me! As for you celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath and your special days for fasting - they are all sinful and false. I want no more of your pious meetings... Was yourselves and be clean! Get your sins out of my sight. Give up your evil ways. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows. "Come now, let's settle this," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool."

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Hey y'all, I know it's been a while. To be honest, I've been dealing with some stuff in my personal life, and there's been a lot of wrestling with God over habits that I wish weren't a part of my life but have planted very deep roots. Pulling up those roots is easier said than done, and it's been pretty exhausting trying to go through that process continually for such a long time. But last night and today, there's been a bit of a stirring, and while spending some much-needed and long overdue time with God this morning, he dropped a revelation into my spirit. At first, I thought it was just gonna be a small thing, but it's ended up being so big that I felt I needed to share it with you. I haven't forgotten about the Spiritual Beings, Physical World series I was doing, and I intend to come back to that. But first, this.

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Last night, one of my sisters asked my what my favourite book of the Bible is. For me, that is an incredibly difficult decision, but after a lot of deliberation I finally settled on Exodus because of all the incredible parallels it shares with the Gospels. Understanding those parallels can massively impact our understanding of the Gospel message and enrich our faith immensely, and the more I learn the more I am amazed. Just to put it into context, Exodus is the story of God delivering his people through a messenger who escaped the presiding ruler's verdict that all boys under the age of 2 must be killed, grew up in Egypt, and spent a significant amount of time being prepared in the wilderness before returning to begin a ministry marked by significant miracles and moves of God. This ministry reached its peak when, using the blood of an innocent lamb which was sacrificed and spread on wooden frames, God saved his people from death and brought them out of their slavery to live a new life, putting to death their captors behind them in an immersion of water. God then brought his people to a mountain where, after a time of preparation, he descended in tongues of fire, smoke, and the sound of a rushing wind to give his people a new covenant and a new way of living. Sound familiar? That is the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection in the Gospels, followed by the day of Pentecost in Acts 1-2. The only difference is that in Acts, God descended on people, not just on a mountain, and he wrote his new covenant, "not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." (2 Cor 3:3 NIV) Pretty cool, huh?

If Exodus is the Old Testament preview of the Gospels and Acts 1-2 (as shown above), it stands to reason that the rest of the Old Testament is also a preview of the days following Jesus' life. We start in Joshua. For those who don't know, the Hebrew name Yehoshuah is the root from which we get both Joshua and Jesus. Therefore, the early church is mirrored by the book of Joshua - God's people being led by Yehoshuah to conquer and inherit the Promised Land, expanding and creating a kingdom that will reflect and glorify God to the surrounding nations. So, where does that put us? I believe we are living in the times of the Judges, Kings & Prophets.

The denominations of the Church are the 12 tribes of Israel. We are meant to be in unity - one nation with many parts - but have instead been fighting amongst each other, each man doing as they please. It has weakened us and made us vulnerable to attack from our enemies (in our case, Satan and his demons). God keeps sending people - judges - who call us to wake us up and come back to him, and that is successful - for a time. These are the 'revivals' we have experienced throughout the church's history, such as Azusa Street and the Toronto Blessing. However, when those 'judges' go, so too do their revivals, and the church grows complacent again. After a time, the people of Israel demanded a king to lead them, as if God wasn't enough (see 1 Samuel 8 to see how that went). This is my own theory, but I believe it's possible that the Pope fills the role of the 'king' that God's people have chosen for themselves. God used some of the kings as intermediaries who followed his law, led others to do the same, expanded his kingdom, and built his house. However, as we read through Kings and Chronicles, we see that the longer time went on, the more corrupt these kings became, and the less they truly followed God in their hearts and actions. Whether this is the case in the church today, I'm not informed enough to comment on. Only time will tell.

What I can say with conviction is that we are in the days of Jonah. Israel (or in this case, the Church) has become so obsessed with being God's chosen people and receiving the benefits of that relationship that they have forgotten their original purpose - to reflect God to the nations so that they too may come to know him. We have our sacrifices (going to/serving in church, tithing, etc.) and we celebrate our feasts and assemblies (communion, church gatherings, conferences, camps, etc.) but more and more we are missing the heart - the very thing God wants most from us. God wants our love, not just our money; he wants our obedience, not just our service; he wants us to be like him, showing mercy and compassion to the broken, hurt and lost; he wants us to raise up those who are downtrodden and dejected; he wants us to help the orphan and the widow find justice and provision. God wants us to demonstrate to the world who he really is, because when they really, truly know who he is, there there is nothing left to do but respond. Their response is their own choice - pride and arrogance, or submission and humility - but when we have done our work, we know that God can melt even the hardest of hearts.

If we continue following this line - if we don't change our path soon by changing our behaviour - I believe that we are heading right towards the Babylonian exile. How that will play out, I don't know. But that is the trend I am now seeing, the direction we are moving in. We, the church (and myself included), need to turn from our ways and come back to God, wholly and truly. We need to come back to the truth of the Word of God alone. Every area needs to be submitted back to him, and every inch of ground we have allowed the enemy to steal from us needs to be reseized with authority to that when Christ returns, he is coming back to a pure, clean Bride. It is not something that we can do alone - it will take every single one of us, because if even one part of the Body is failing, every part suffers with it (1 Cor 12:26). And it includes every single area where the Word of God has been misaligned - from things as small as gossip and cliques in the church to topics as large as abortion and the encouragement of LGBTQ practice.

Note: practice, not people. In all things, the church must act with love and remember that not a single one of us is completely without sin. It is only God who makes us clean and pure, and it is only God who can continue to do so. Our job is only to love as God first loved us. However, if the Bible demonstrates one thing, it is that perfect love doesn't not always require tolerance and encouragement. Sometimes, it requires boundaries, hard words, and discipline. If there are people who are not living according to the Word of God, especially within the church, then we need to rebuke their actions, not tolerate them. If we let them keep living in a way that dishonours and disobeys God's Word in the name of 'love', then we are only 'loving' them to their eternal separation from God.

Church, it is time to wake up. You, me, us. Together. We are the remnant who remains, the ones who will stay faithful to our Lord, God, and King. It doesn't mean we're perfect, but that's the power of our testimony - that even, "while we were still sinner, Christ died for us." (Rom 5:8 NIV) God has made us clean, and he gives us power and authority in all his kingdom, so that we will do miracles in his Name and see him glorified. It's time to step up and do the work, just like he's told us to.