Heavenly seeds are sown in the shadows of winter Where the only light to be found is but a flicker Yet come the spring, that which fell and died Rises with the summer sun and is glorified
Tribulation may be the soil beneath our feet Yet the glory is the blossom and the fruit And storms and trials may be our lot But Christ Himself is our very root
We can glory in the cross and in the shame And we can do it all for the sake of His name Yet the seed that falls and dies in the ground Shall rise again in glory, and in Him shall be found
So cry aloud with all your might beneath the soil For neither principality nor power can despoil The coming glory of the day that follows night And the saint who praises God with all their might!
As I was walking and praying today, the Holy Spirit dropped this phrase into my spirit, “Debilitating Doldrums.” Now, that word “doldrums,” is an old sailors term for a geographical spot slightly north and slightly south of the equator in the Atlantic sea between Brazil and Africa. It is a corridor, if you like, that in days of old, if sailors found themselves there, they could be stranded for weeks because there is no wind there. The effects of the Doldrums are caused by solar radiation from the sun, as sunlight beams down directly on the area around the equator. This heating causes the air to warm and rise straight up rather than blow horizontally. The result is little or no wind, sometimes for weeks on end. Many sailors ran out of food and water and died there.
How does this relate to the saints? Oftentimes yesterdays failures causes in us a period of reflection and regret and remorse. None of that is wrong in and of itself and in fact is a vital part of who we are as God’s children. Yet, if we get stuck there, if this inner reflection goes beyond a point that is healthy, it takes the wind out of our sails. We shall find ourselves in the doldrums. The wind of the Spirit does not blow. Our spiritual resources begin to dry up. We become morose. The only solution for the sailors of old and for those of us who find ourselves there, is for the wind to blow. We must pray that the wind will blow again as we take our eyes of ourselves and look to skies.
If the wind begins to blow, no matter how small the breeze, remember this. You have to raise the sails to catch the wind. That is our part. An unhealthy inner refection with our eyes upon ourselves brought us into this place, and raising the sails once the wind blows will take us out. Remember the four Rs. 1.Reflection 2.Regret. 3.Remorse.4. Repentance. All of these make up the corridor of the doldrums. They all come because of the direct gaze of God upon our lives and our actions. And when they have found their proper place then the winds of forgiveness begin to blow. We have to accept that we are forgiven by God then we have to forgive ourselves. We must let His forgiveness carry us from that place so that we can continue the journey. Do not die in the doldrums, rather catch the wind and live.
Blow the trumpet in Zion, sound the alarm. God’s judgment is unfolding. The sense of sacredness, the manifest presence of God is so elusive today. In part it is because the locusts of Joel have eaten everything, so to speak. And in their wake there is a devastating famine. I would argue that the locusts have done their work. And here we stand starving to death. Add a drought to the famine and its a double calamity. Most of Christendom cannot repent because they are still blind to what ails them, this also is part of the judgment. For water one must now dig down very deep. And for food one must wander far from the reservation so to speak. Famine scatters people much like persecution.
The darkness Joel is talking about is spiritual and it is literal. There was actually locusts devouring everything. How terrifying to stand and watch everything you have, everything that you need to survive, being devoured before your very eyes. The clouds of locusts blackened out the sun in the midday. In our own day, the days are darkened by the smoke from wildfires. Year after year the fires continue, they grow larger and they darken the land and pollute the air. The sun is turned to darkness and the moon to blood as we watch on helplessly.
Go into your average church this coming Sunday. Where is the sacredness in their midst? Where is their sense of His holiness that causes the people to only speak in whispers, even if they dare to do that? Are holy trembling hands raised to heaven in the glory? Are our heads bowed low by the weight of His presence? Has the locusts devoured everything and left us with nothing? I am afraid that is the truth. We cannot hold a solemn assembly to ward of the disaster, the disaster has already befallen us. All that is left for us to do now is to rend our hearts and not our garments. We must return to the Lord our God with weeping and with fasting and mourning.
This word, of course is to His remnant. The great falling away has completed its task. This thing called Christendom, with all of its garments, its buildings and its programs and its careers now stand barren in the strange noonday darkness. They stand emaciated under a blood red moon. The darkness only grows darker and the hearts are destined to grow more faint until the people will writhe in pain and all the color drains away from their faces. Yet for those who will rend their hearts and seek the Lord their God with all of their hearts, they will find Him, for His own namesake.
The locusts may have devoured the spiritual land but like a refiners fire it has done its work and will do its work. It identifies and marks out those who seek Him with their whole hearts. Whether from the early morning or from late in the day, no matter, the Lord’s hand is open and He is well able to heal that which He has wounded. He will rain down the latter rains of His Spirit upon them. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord with their whole hearts He will hear from heaven. He will pour out His Spirit upon them in a dry and thirsty land. “There shall be a deliverance as the Lord has said among the remnant whom the Lord calls.”
Many Christians around the world believe that the Lord is coming soon. Its a major tenet of Christianity to believe that the Lord is coming back and before He does the earth will be ravaged by many things. It is commonly called the beginning of sorrows, and Jesus teaches us these things from Matt 24. Its when we see all of these things happening together that I believe we can say that we have genuinely entered the period of ‘ the beginning of sorrows.” Indeed we should be able to discern the signs of the times. It seems that everything that can be shaken is being shaken, whether its in the desert sands, or on the sea floor or on the land. Politically, economically, naturally, everything is being shaken, and you can rest assured that it comes from the hand of God.
There is a great multitude today who are desperately hungry and thirsty. All over the world the people dwell in great darkness and the darkness increases every day. Hell has opened its vaults and is beginning to spew out evil with increasing speed and urgency because it knows its time is short. There is desperate darkness coming and it is coming at us with alarming speed. Yet, as in the time of Noah, the world is ignorant of the impending disaster about to befall it. Like the children of Israel when Jesus says ” O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to her, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!”
Just as the Lord came to die so that He may bring forth life in the resurrection, so to with God’s remnant people. The people of the last day will be a martyred people, a genuine witness in the earth. Yet God will never abandon His people, especially at a time of extreme persecution, a time so severe that we have not seen the like before, a time that God Himself shortens for the elects sake.
You have gathered here today in defiance of darkness and tyranny. You have come here to fight as free men and free men you are, for it is I that gave you that very freedom. So you see with your eyes that you are few and they are many, you see that you are vastly outnumbered. Will you fight today?Read the rest of this entry »
There is a time for shouting and praising God, but if we are ignoring the knocking, then we must stop shouting. If our lives are not reflecting the Glory of God, if we are not becoming like His Son, daily, then all of our shouting and praising God will just be so much noise. How tragic for the church of the living God if, when He looks down, He does not see praise but just a group of people making a noise.”Read the rest of this entry »
“Jesus has many who love His kingdom in heaven, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering. He finds many to share His feast, but few His fasting.All desire to rejoice with Him, but few are willing to suffer for His sake. Many follow Jesus to the breaking of the bread, but few to the drinking of the cup of His passion. Many admire the miracles, but few follow Him to the humiliation of the cross. Many love Jesus as long as no hardship touches them.”
This is a vision that I had as I stood on a terrace in Croatia. My wife and I went there last year on our 25th anniversary. Before I went the Lord had shown me that I would meet someone there and that it would be significant, just did not know that He was talking about Himself. The whole piece was my vision, He gave me a new way of writing my testimony and of writing about coming into His presence, then the Word that He gave me for the church, I wrote in red at the end. I pray that this will challenge and convict you………….
They will gather together and throw in their gold and rise up and play, or in this case, fall down and play. You see the people are without leadership, and the Lord has with-held His rain. So the people have demanded gods to go before them, listen to what they said to Aaron…”make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him. “
She put her head back against the wall and looking upwards told me that she was in no position to even try and refuse this. She was blown away that God had answered her and her husbands prayer so immediately (she did not know that I had messed around for several week) She could not wait to get home and share this with her husband. Higher critics could explain this in the natural, but the supernatural is God talking to His people, directing them and of course, His perfect timing.
A Call To The Remnant 