August 17, 2013

 

THE TRUMPET HAS BEEN SET TO THE MOUTH!

 

There!  How do you like that for an introduction?  We're talking about a direct message conveyed by an angel of the Lord.  I'll share it with you momentarily.

In  last week's Coffee Break, I shared the following: The lie of Mammon -- the lie of Babylon -- is that all religions are the same.  Christianity -- despite the fact that major efforts have been made to treat it as such -- is about as un-religious as anything can be.  True Christianity is nothing more and nothing less than an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.  Religion(s) on the other hand is devoid of real relationship.  Religion -- and especially the humanistic religion of Babylon -- requires near-robotic behavior to a set of laws, commandments, rules, regulations, restrictions and doctrines which strip one of relationship with God while attempting to please Him through this mechanical behavior.

Babylon requires allegiance to the king of Babylon.  Babylon requires uniformity of thinking and living.  Babylon creates sheer slavery by forcing men and women to take the "mark of the beast" -- the king of Babylon himself -- in their right hand and live, and conduct business according to Babylon's rules.  Babylon deprives men and women of free will and free choice by manipulating their thinking and the way they believe, and in the process creates a "mark in their foreheads."

The root of this kind of thinking is found in the Fear of Evil -- one of the three dominant spirits of fear that have infected the human race ever since the fall.  This is something I've talked about and ministered on for more than 30 years.  The Fear of Evil is the granddaddy of all evil spirits, and the progenitor of the Fear of Man, as well as the Fear of Death.

Without covering territory all over again in this Coffee Break that I've discussed on numerous times in the past, the Fear of Evil is that demonic prince which takes hold in a person when they persistently eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  You may have noticed that in Revelation 2:17 one of the promises made "to him that overcometh" is "hidden manna."

People who continually and persistently eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil are barred from eating of the Tree of Life.  The Tree of Life provides all of the revelation one needs to function and live a practical, day-to-day, prosperous life in Christ Jesus.  The hidden manna is the peeling away of layer after layer after layer of revelation of the nature and character of the Lord Jesus Christ to which we've been (pre-)destined.

We have a destiny in Jesus Christ, a destiny of ruling and reigning, a destiny of overcoming all that is in the world and all that Satan has tried to corrupt with his lies, manipulations and deceptions.  It is an unrealized destiny for a huge number of "believers" simply because they are still stuck with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil -- and the Babylonian mindset that comes as a result of eating of that tree.

There is nothing "rational" (from the perspective of one whose mind has been 
corrupted by Babylon) about the faith walk available to believers.  One of Babylon's most common clichés is, "God helps those who help themselves."  NO HE DOESN'T!!

God helps those who totally and without reservation trust in, rely upon, and walk according to the rhema that comes from hearing, paying attention to, and obeying Holy Spirit.  The cry of the Spirit in the earth today to God's people to "Come out of Babylon" is a warning for folks to cease depending on what they have learned, what they think they know, or what they are currently experiencing and instead to listen to the voice of Holy Spirit.  The cry to "Come out of Babylon" is to depart entirely from one's dependence on and use of the world's economic methodologies, and to enter into a Kingdom economic system.

Babylon is totally incompatible with the Kingdom of God.  For roughly 4,500 years Babylon has corrupted the thinking, the behavior, and the monetary practices of the world.  For that reason, God has issued a decree against Babylon and all who subscribe to the king of Babylon's thinking and practices.

Consider for a moment a picture from Revelation 11:15-19: "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever.  And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,  Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.

"And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.   And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail."

Obviously there is a whole lot more here than I could even begin to explore in this Coffee Break, but I want to draw your attention to a couple pieces of this prophecy.

Verse 15 opens up with, "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven...."

The Greek word used here which gets translated "sounded" is the word, salpidzo, which means: to let loose with a blast on a trumpet.  It is followed with the phrase, "there were great voices in heaven."  This phrase, "great voices" rather understates the context of the Greek words and could actually be expansively translated in context as: a deafening roar of voices [speaking prophetic agreement with the sound of the trumpet].  I'm amplifying things a bit, I know, but it is important to understand that the seventh angel's trumpet blast was a prophetic decree.

That decree was the beginning of a series of events which marks the end of Babylon, the king of Babylon, and the spirit of Jezebel, along with their power and influence in the earth.  What was the decree?

"The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever."

During the years that Dwain McKenzie and I served at Long Beach Christian Center, we got to know John Hinkle, a Charismatic Presbyterian pastor in southern California whose influence in the Charismatic Renewal was both prophetic and profound.  In the spring of 1993 John awoke one morning with the audible voice of God speaking the following rather cryptic phrase to him, "Thursday, June the 9th."

There was no explanation with it and he found it both tantalizing and puzzling.  He got out of bed and went to look at his calendar.  There was no Thursday, June 9th in 1993.  Thumbing through the calendar for the coming year, he discovered that 1994 indeed had a Thursday, June 9th.  With no other clarity from Holy Spirit,  he began to spread the word among fellow ministers, and particularly those who had strong prophetic giftings.  No one -- at least at the time -- could come up with any explanation other than the fact that God was apparently going to do something of great significance on that date.  In the months that followed he learned of others who had a similar experience.

Thursday, June 9 of 1994 found Della and I in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada gathered with friends for some spontaneous worship gatherings.  A few weeks ago I mentioned our friend, Eileen Finnman, whom the Lord has healed from cancer.  One of her friends was driving from Red Deer to Edmonton.  She saw a man standing alongside the highway hitchhiking.  She felt prompted to stop and pick up the hitchhiker but argued within herself, saying, "Lord, you know I don't pick up hitchhikers.  Not at all!  It's just not safe!"

She drove on past the hitchhiker and Holy Spirit almost shouted in her ear, "I said, STOP!  Go back and pick up that hitchhiker!"  Nothing to do but find a place to turn around, get on the other side of the freeway and head back.  A few minutes later she was back to where the hitchhiker was standing and pulled over to let him in.

As she prepared to pull back into the traffic she started to say, "Where are you headed," but before she could finish the hitchhiker said, "The trumpet has been set to the mouth" and vanished.  She was more than a little shakened by the experience and when she arrived in Edmonton, she called the RCMP office to report the "incident."  The officer who took her call said to her, "Lady, you are the sixth person to call in with that same report."

At the same time, people were experiencing the identical thing in many places.  To the south in Lethbridge three more people called the local RCMP office with the same report.  We later learned of others who'd had the same thing happen to them: an Idaho State Patrol officer, a Montana State Trooper, several drivers as well as Washington State Patrol officers in the areas around Seattle-Tacoma and Olympia.

The fact that all these people reported the identical incident at the same time in so many different places signaled the fact that the Lord was making an announcement He wanted folks to pay attention to.  It was a warning that needed to be published abroad.  The seventh angel was sounding!  The seventh trumpet was being blown.  The Spirit of the Lord was drawing attention to the fact that Babylon's day of judgment was at hand!

That same day, June 9, 1994, an earthquake measuring something on the order of 9.1 struck in the area of La Paz, Bolivia.  The quake reached all the way to Toronto, Ontario.  It was one of the largest quakes of the 20th century.  As we began to hear about the quake, the Lord spoke to Della and quoted to her from Isaiah 5:14 and Isaiah 14:9 the prophecy regarding Satan, "Hell hath been enlarged to receive thee at thy coming."

By themselves, those events would have been enough to draw a whole lot of attention, but the Lord didn't leave it there.  Consider this unique sign in the heavens.  A little more than five weeks after the June 9th events, the comet, Shoemaker-Levy, collided with the planet Jupiter.  The collision lasted for seven days.  The comet had broken into 21 pieces.  The collisions began on July 17th, 1994, shortly after 12:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).  It resulted in explosions on a scale never before seen in the history of astronomy.

The energy released exceeded one million megatons of TNT (that is another way of saying one trillion tons), dwarfing the power released if all of the nuclear bombs on the earth were to be exploded at the same instant.)  It resulted in tunnels of fire on, and above, the surface of Jupiter as large as, or larger than, the state of Texas in diameter, and mushroom clouds above the surface of the planet larger than Earth.  Shock waves were generated by these explosions creating a "sound" (inaudible low-frequency, geo-magnetic and gravitational waves) which reverberated throughout our solar system.

Was this a sign from the Lord to confirm that "the trumpet has been set to the mouth?"

The preciseness of the numbers involved, 17 (the number of the Bride), 7 (the number of the Father), 21 (3 - the number of the Godhead - once again times 7), strongly implies an act of God and suggests that we should sit up and take notice.

Consider that which John saw in Revelation 10:1-3.  The context is that of the appearance of the seventh angel, who is about to blow the seventh trumpet.  "And I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud;.........And he placed his right foot on the sea and his left on the land; and he cried out with a loud voice as the roar of a lion: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices."

There is another aspect of this event which bears consideration.  The word in the Greek text for "thunders" is brontai.  This word literally means, "a fiery and destructive sound."  No word could better describe that which took place 21 times in 7 days as tunnels of fire exploded forth from the surface of the planet Jupiter with accompanying geo-magnetic shock waves.

John says that when the angel cried, "seven thunders (brontai) uttered their voices."  Would you believe, 21 times ( 3 X 7) in 7 days?  All right!  O.K.!  I know that this is not the traditional explanation for the "seven thunders," but I believe that it deserves consideration in the light of the other attendant events.

What is all of this for?  What is the Lord doing?  What is He saying?  In no uncertain terms, whether you see the events in the natural, or hear them in the Spirit, it is one and the same!

Babylon has fallen!  Babylon is falling!  Babylon will continue to fall!

Many people have raised the question of where all of this fits in God’s timetable.  What does this mean with  regard to “the end times?”  Once again, I remind you that the instruction of the Lord which has been given to us repeatedly is, “Just listen!  Don’t try to interpret the things you see and hear through your own computer.”  Human nature desperately wants to figure God out and set timetables that will make us comfortable with what He is doing.  It won’t work!

 

The Word of the Lord is going forth for all to hear.  That Word goes forth so that we may sit up, take notice, and pay attention to the fact that the Lord is fulfilling His Word.  When will the fall of Babylon be complete?   None of us can answer that question, and it isn’t greatly important that we know timing.  It is relevant only to the Lord as He unfolds His Plan and Purpose for His people.  Once again, it is not important that we know “when.”  It is only important that the Lord is revealing it to us.  What is relevant is that we hear and obey the Word of the Lord.

 

The cry goes forth, therefore, to those people who are still caught in Babylon -- to those who are still caught in the mindset of Mammon, the structure, the organization, the politics, the need for hierarchical authority, or the need for "democratic" representation and operation in their relationship with the Lord, "Come out of her, My People, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

Next week we will embark on a somewhat different course in our discussions and talk about The Spirit and The Bride.

Once again, have the most prosperous week you've ever known or experienced!

Blessings on you!