REVOLUTION This century has been marked by global sociological confusion, political corruption, individual loneliness and profound spiritual pain and a sickness of soul. The world is in a global crisis of a sickness of body because of a viral pandemic. There have been other global crises over the last century such as WW1 and the Spanish flu, WW2 and atomic warfare, and now this, which is baffling the entire world regarding preventing it, treating it and how long it has to go. The world has...
REVOLUTION
This century has been marked by global sociological confusion, political corruption, individual loneliness and profound spiritual pain and a sickness of soul. The world is in a global crisis of a sickness of body because of a viral pandemic. There have been other global crises over the last century such as WW1 and the Spanish flu, WW2 and atomic warfare, and now this, which is baffling the entire world regarding preventing it, treating it and how long it has to go. The world has come to a standstill.
Despite our unlimited access to knowledge and technology there is a general discontent with the false or unrealized promises that have been offered to society, leaving many feeling empty and unfulfilled. There is also a general distrust of the structures of leadership and systems of government and law and order. There is a feeling in the air is that there is a revolution coming – but what kind of a revolution. A revolution is the overturning of one kind of order to establish or re-establish another kind of order. There is an intense revolutionary feel in the violent and even non violent protests in our streets, and even moreso in the US and in Europe and Asia. Protesters are being driven by emotions and attitudes of rebellion deeper than and sometimes unrelated to the actual causes they stand for. Some people just want to rebel.
This kind of disordered chaos has been experienced before many times in the earth and revolutions did happen. There have been many revolutions upon the earth –political, industrial, people power and religious – and scientific. But there was a quiet and orderly revolution that happened during the London plague of 1665 when a quarter of the population of London died. Isaac Newton was quarantined in isolation for one year (like and enforced Sabbath) and in that time discovered differential calculus and the laws of motion and gravity. There's a quote from Newton that came out of his experience - 'truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.' His science was a revolution in the world of science.
The next revolution may not be any of those. It may not start in the streets or cities, or in parliaments or halls of congress. It may not even start in the church. I believe it will start in Heaven – God wants to start his own revolution. It can hopefully then be taken up in the Church and then occur in all the other places. I want to read a Scripture about God starting his own revolution. The Scripture is about God starting his own revolution when Israel fell into moral and spiritual and social disorder, but it is also I believe about God’s revolution starting in our world, in our times, our prophetic Kairos times in the earth today.
Ezekiel 21:25. (To Israel) You say you have agreed to my Covenant, but I call you to remembrance of your iniquity so that that I may deal with you… O King Zedekiah, prince of Israel, your day of reckoning is here. remove the mitre and your jeweled crown,"the Lord God says."The old order changes. Now I will humble the exalted and exalt the humble. I will overturn, overturn, overturn the kingdom, so that even the new order that emerges will not succeed until the Man who has a right to it takes his rightful place and I will give it all to him
In that Scripture God intervened and sent a message to his people through the prophet Ezekiel that He would overturn, overturn, overturn (That means revolution). Israel had fallen into idolatry under a succession of careless wicked kings, and at a time when Babylon was ascending into power over the then known world under Nebuchadnezzar. Israel’s king was in league with Babylon and looked to Babylon for national security rather than to God. Even though Israel were doing the rituals of offering incense and sacrifices and while many individual people honoured God in these things, they had generally wandered off in their true allegiance to God under misguided leadership. Zedekiah was the King of Israel at the time of Ezkiel’s prophecy and was made king by Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah started to switch allegiance to Egypt for political favour and this outraged Nebuchnezzar who decided to lay siege to Jerusalem and overthrow it. He took King Zedekiah and many thousands of the children of Israel to Babylon. He did this over a period of time and many even chose to stay behind in the desolated city. When Ezekiel was told (Ezekiel 21:18) to tell Israel that the king of Babylon would overthrow Jerusalem Israel scoffed and said that they were in covenant with God, but Israel had not obeyed the terms of their Covenant with God. Ezekiel told them that God would remove the mitre and the crown. The mitre stood for the priestly ministry and the crown stood for the Kingly ministry – the priests connected them to the heart of God and the King gave them authority under God. They had distanced themselves from their Covenant with God.
A Covenant is like a contract, a terms of agreement for a binding relationship. A contract like this has three things that make it binding and effective – The promise, the payment, and the signature, or seal of agreement concerning all the special terms. The promise to Israel was Gods provision and protection and care for their lives. The payment was their sacrifices and their obedience to the Commandments. The seal, in other words the signing off concerning all the special terms God had put in place for the contract was their observance to the Sabbaths (Exodus 31:1). They thought they were doing this, but they resisted one big item regarding the Sabbaths. They did many of them, like the weekly Sabbath which they were meticulous about, and the new moons and festivals which were ritualised, but the demonstration of faith that would prove that they trusted God for his provision, which was demonstrated openly by ceasing from farming one year in every seven. They were to gratefully celebrate their relationship with God and with one another as tribes and families and friends and rest in God by trusting Him to provide for them and keep them safe and secure. Israel had not obeyed these Sabbath Rest Years for 490 years. They had not trusted God nor honoured him as their security and safety and provision. The priests had not instituted it and the Kings had not ordered it. They had trusted the idols of the nations, in this case Babylon. They breached the contract so then God would not continue to honour his part. Their judgment was that they would be taken into captivity for seventy years into Babylon until the ‘land had received her rest’ (2Chronicles 36:21)
There are some striking parallels to the state of affairs between God and his people Israel and to those between God and his people in the earth today. In many places and at many times the State has influenced and dominated the material and moral nature of the Church, just as Ezekiel describes Babylon dominating and influencing Israel. It happened in the early days of Christendom when the Roman Empire was the head of the Church. Even after the Reformation in Europe the State still had great sway over the Church, and in recent times we have seen Russia and China give token authority to puppet Church structures, and in the Western Church today we see the worldly influences of materialism and immorality corrupting the institutional Church.
We see political correctness stifling the voice of the regular Church, which is supposed to be the pillar and ground of truth. The Church is meant to be the expression of The Holy Spirit of Jesus and the Father in the earth. The Church is in Covenant relationship with God, as Israel was in Ezekiel’s time, and just as God had to overturn in the day of Ezekiel, I believe God wants to overturn overturn overturn in the Church today -His Revolution, a three time overturn which I believe means Father Son and Holy Spirt activity. God wants to recommission His Church into its powerful partnership with Him in bringing care and compassion and justice to this world. He wants to imbue us with a deeper confidence and trust and peace that He is with us in every single area of our lives in the midst of uncertain times – the times of our enforced Sabbath.
If Israel had understood the terms of agreement of their Covenant with God they would have attached their signature to the contract – they would have honoured the Sabbath years of rest, trusting God for their provision, enjoying faithful fellowship with a good God and with one another. They would have ceased from hanging on with their anxious hands to the Babylonian influence they were trusting in.
I believe God is saying to the Church today ‘I will overturn overturn overturn’. The three ‘overturns’ that I said I believe to mean the work of The Father, The Son Jesus, and The Holy Spirit. This is His revolution to bless us and reorder our lives under the terms of his Covenant with us.
In his contract with us we have three things
ONE - the Promise - ‘His life given to our lives for the forgiveness of our sins, and for the care and provision of our lives as His beloved children’ That is the first overturn – the first work of renewing and strengthening our understanding of the goodness of the Father. GOD FOR US
TWO – The Payment – ALL DONE! Jesus has become the sacrifices and has made payment and given us His life for us to share. That is the second overturn – The second work of renewing and strengthening our understanding of the shared life of Jesus. GOD WITH US.
THREE – The signature and the seal. Ephesians 1:13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and after you believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
That is the third overturn – This is the third work - of renewing and strengthening our understanding of the empowering of the indwelling Holy Spirit. GOD IN US.
So how do we appropriate this signature or seal of The Holy Spirit? The verse above tells us – It is after we believe, fully believe in the empowering presence of Holy Spirit within us.
What is the result of this revolution for the Church. Look at the picture of Israel that we just spoke about
We have a better Covenant of GOD FOR US, GOD WITH US, AND GOD WITHIN US.
God wants to revolutionise His Church by having them enter into the REST OF FAITH, and ceasing from their anxiety and drivenness and allowing God to work through us into the hearts of those in our world around us. The Sabbath rest for Israel meant giving the land rest for one year. Their land was actual territory, real estate. Our land is another territory – the territory of our hearts. Their time of prescribed rest was one year. Our time frame for Sabbath rest is not just one day or one year, it is every moment of every day. We can exercise a continual rest in our hearts of faith and trust in God, and find rest for our souls. This becomes our seal of the Covenant, the ever present indwelling of The Holy Spirit.
Ezekiel told Israel that God would remove the mitre and the crown. The mitre stood for the priestly ministry and the crown stood for the kingly ministry – the priests connected them to the heart of God and the King gave them authority under God. They had distanced themselves from their Covenant with God.
God wants to revive our priestly ministry. This means to awaken our faithful hearts of prayer and caring compassion in connecting those people and those circumstances in our world around us to the good and gracious heart of The Father.
God also wants to revive our Kingly ministry. This means to awaken us to a deeper awareness of His authority working in us to overcome the powers of darkness and disorder and chaos in the world around us.
This is how God starts a revolution. To some it might seem like revival, to others it might seem like judgement. It may be called a ‘move of God’. It doesn’t matter what we call it – it is a revolution from heaven, and it puts things right.
That word from God was directed at God’s people, Israel, who were chosen to reveal God to the world. Today it is the church that has been chosen to reveal God to our world.
Philippians 2:15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.
