We continue on with last week’s discussion, but this time taking a different approach and considering a different aspect of healing for those who’ve been wounded in soul and spirit. We’ll start once again with Isaiah’s prophecy – the same place where Jesus started His ministry – as we take up our study with the wounded soul and the wounded spirit and see how each area affects the other.
This is a topic I have mostly avoided for the past 20-plus years, ever since I first heard it discussed. I’ve heard about “soul fragments” for years, but never really considered the Scriptural foundations for this area of teaching – and in fact thought folks who ministered in this area had really gone overboard, stretching the Word into an area that didn’t really exist. This is an area of understanding where I have had some blinders on – and thankfully the Holy Spirit has opened my eyes.
OK. Thought I was going to finish up this thing on math last week, but I can't help it. I get started with this stuff and can't stop. I love the parallels in Scripture. Math and mathematical principles abound in the Word of God. God is very precise in everything that He does, and we govern our lives according to that precision.
Continuing where we left off last week, we consider the number 12 in the picture of the Bride of Christ -- the number of Ekklesia, the number of preparation, and the number of governmental authority. Last week, we said that the New Jerusalem does not only consist of Jews. Representing the call to, and gathering from, the nations are the twelve foundation stones, and on them the names of the twelve apostles who made up that first Ekklesia.
Throughout Scripture, we see numbers repeated again and again and again. What most folks miss is that these numbers are metaphors in Hebrew with pictures that go well beyond the surface. When John wrote, “And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” the angel of the Lord was showing him the same thing that Ezekiel had seen in a vision. It was not a city in the sense of a physical or geographical place; it was the ensample of a principle: a principle which strikes at the very heart of all that the Lord has been doing in our midst.
Let’s see if we can wrap us this series today and talk about the blessing of tribulation. Can’t think of anyone I’ve ever talked to over the years who suggested that tribulation was an absolute blessing, but it is. No affliction, no trial, no false accusation, no trouble of any kind seems to be joyful at the moment you are going through it, and when all hell breaks loose around you, you often look for a hole so you can crawl into it and hide. Doesn’t seem to work that way, does it?
It has been a pleasure, thus far, to see the responses of readers who’ve taken this series to heart – especially those who’ve been through a lot, not really understanding what it is all about. So many folks have been programmed with the religious mentality of the so-called “Great Tribulation,” believing that it is something the Lord is going to snatch them out of so they don’t have to suffer.
I ran out of time last week to finish the story of 13-year-old Rosa Frankson, who endured persecution, beatings and torture for the sake of the Gospel. I’m getting ahead of myself in saying so, but her life and her testimony affected the whole community of Point Hope, Alaska. After three or four days of hanging between life and death, and fading in and out of consciousness, she was awake and talking to the attending nurse. "You need to know Jesus like I do," she said. The nurse teared up, and not knowing what else to do or say, reached over and patted Rosa on the head. "You're going to be OK, Rosa."
For reasons that are perfectly understandable when you realize how much we have been contaminated with the culture and mindset of death, God’s people want to be “raptured” out of here to escape all those things that Paul experienced for the sake of the Gospel. I want to begin today with a story of a young woman who experienced much of what we have just read in II Corinthians. Her name is Diana H. Hopefully, we will be able to have her share her experiences in person, but for today, let me give you a very brief overview of her life.
It was my intention to begin a series on Covenant today, but because of a number of ongoing discussions with different groups in the past few weeks, I felt the necessity of changing gears for the next few weeks. Most of us have grown up within the structured church world and subjected to a variety of teachings concerning “The Great Tribulation.” In fact, there is no such thing in the Word — anywhere — as “The Great Tribulation.”