"Precious, costly, valuable and rare in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Ps. 116:15I just finished up a four month stint of participating on a couple of "Christian/New Age" forums and because of that experience I debated whether to use this title rather than that which I chose; "THE DAY OF OUR IMPOTENCE IN THE FACE OF GREAT APOSTASY." With this enlightening experience I was beyond astounded by that which these people were espousing as "good for the soul" in their grasp for power. There is nothing to be perceived as unclean with these people and to judge anything in the negative is taboo. This below was suggested reading by one on this "New Tolerance" forum and this is pretty much part and parcel of that which is being explored and embraced by these wayward souls in their gropings for knowledge and power. This is taken from the referred site which is filled with pages of instruction by one who speaks in the first person as God. Hold your breath!
You, who are still holding to the idea, taught in various teachings, that I will provide a "Master" or Divine Teacher for each aspirant towards union with Me, hear My Words.
It is true I have permitted you in the past to delve into all kinds of mystical and occult books and teachings, encouraging your secret desire to acquire the powers necessary to attain this union extolled in such teachings, even to the extent of quickening in you some slight consciousness of the possession of such powers.
I have even permitted the belief that by practicing certain exercises, breathing in a certain way, and saying certain mantras, you might attract to you a "Master" from the unseen, who would become your teacher and help you to prepare for certain initiations that would admit you into an advanced Degree, in some secret Order in the inner planes of existence, where much of My Divine Wisdom would be opened up to you.
I have not only permitted these things, but, if you can see it, it was I who led you to these books, inspired in you such desire, and caused such belief to find lodgment in your mind; -- but not for the purpose you imagine.
Yes, I have brought you through all these teachings, desires and beliefs, trying to point out to your human mind the Forces I use to bring into expression My Divine Idea.
I have portrayed these Forces as heavenly Hierarchies, and that your human intellect might the better comprehend, I pictured them as Angels or Divine Beings, Impersonal agents or executors of My Will, engaged in the process of bringing into expression My Idea that was in the beginning .....
You are a human personality, yet You are Divine and therefore Perfect.
I share this to contrast that which I believe is taking place in the lives of that small handful of sons taken out of the whole of mankind in this closing age. These saints are those that groan sympathetically with all creation for deliverance from the fallen Adamic state (Rom 8). These sons do not grasp for power and knowledge but seek only Jesus in whom all power and knowledge rests. Instead of exploring all things good and evil they have learned to allow Christ to do the exploring by His illuminating Holy Spirit. They know the exploration is His and with it there is a glorious inward working of the knowledge of Christ where the darkness of the soul is changed to light. So is His eternal Cross ever at work in the lives of those called "peculiar" and with this working of death to self and soul there is the progressive resurrection each day of their first estate once enjoyed before their decent into Adam. This is their progressive salvation and for God's overcomers nothing will suffice until this His death and resurrection is complete within them. The lives of these precious sons so contrast that of those that have been caught up in this newest delusion that today grows by leaps and bounds. While God's sons are hedged in and have no place to go, but through the last processings and purifications in the God's fiery furnace heated up by seven, the "New Ager's" and the "it is finished" crowd revel in their new found freedoms. As this ever growing New Age rebellion takes place, in stark contrast, God's elect saints have found they have no choice but to stand in Him as He completes the prunings, crushings and pressings that prepares them for the greatest ministry ever imagined; "the setting free of all creation." It is to you precious saints, tried and perfected, that I share some gleanings, that you might be encouraged as you stand firm while God completes the final emptyings before pouring into you the last of all that He is. I pray you, like me, can only but believe we are on the edge of the coming Feast of Tabernacles and the sounding of the trump announcing the great manifestation of the first fruits of "Jesus brethren perfected."
Now, please hear the words of Elwin Roach as he contrasts the I AM'ers of the New Age, that think they are "finished", with those that share the sufferings of Christ that they might become as He, a sweet savoring wine for a parched and thirsting world.
As it was with Him, we too are severely bruised, crushed beneath great pressures as the fruit of every good vine is crushed. However, we hear some saying, as it were, "I am a full grown, ripe grape of God. Royal purple of deity is my covering. I am deliciously sweet with the overflowing presence of God’s life. I know my origin, and I am attached firmly to that everlasting vine. I am, therefore, finished. There is nothing that lies ahead except for me to simply be. For I am, and this I am that I am will feed the nations from the fruit that I am in this perfect state of the I am. In one sense, this may very well be true; but don't we know that once the fruit of the vine is ripe, the time for being plucked has come and the processing to begin? Ripe fruit of the vine of life may be tasty; but creation is not longing for a cup of unprocessed grape juice or clusters of churches, but the new wine, the last wine, the best and finest wine of the ages.
The crushing of Jesus began in the Garden of Gethsemane. It continued throughout the night before the high priest's court of vicious interrogation and false witnesses, and then before Herod and Pilate. The crushing continued by being scourged, taunted, and ended after nine excruciating hours upon the cross .......
We, likewise, are crushed, made helpless, shamed, and we lay dead, as it were, in the darkness of the tomb, in hell, where those good things within that are held captive can be freed to rise with us in resurrection life. We have to go to the depths of our being, the very hell of ourselves in order to lead it all captive. It is then, praise God, we rise victoriously alive as unveiled overcomers in the world that creation so eagerly awaits. And as it was with our Lord, it is by the resurrection from the dead that we are declared the sons of God. That's the way it was with Jesus, and so will it be with us: "And declared...the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Romans 1:4.
What He finished in Himself and for the world, He will finish in us. He gave up His life by fulfilling Passover, He imparted His life and fulfilled Pentecost, and He will surely fulfill Tabernacles by being gloriously manifested in His body all over the world. Until then, we will be in the fiery process of being made ready for that great Apocalypse. (Roach)
To emphasize this finishing work God is performing in the lives of His precious overcomers allow me also to share a few words by another anointed writer, as he beautifully echoes the preceding thoughts of Roach.
Blessed are you that have gotten into Christ’s fire! Blessed are you that have found His fire in your souls, in whatever fires He has been pleased to send you, and into whatever furnaces He has been pleased to cast you!
"Our hearts and souls are the workshop of God. It is there that He is changing us and bringing us into union with Himself in the spirit. And what a mighty work it is that He is doing there! The change comes not by a wonderful spiritual experience with waves of joy and glory. Oh, no! It is the blow of His hammer that breaks our hard heart! It is the stroke of His ax that strikes at the root of our life! It is the plunge of His pruning knife that cuts away the natural, worldly, and religious things that sap our spiritual strength! It is the furnace heated seven times hot that consumes our dross! It is an overthrow, a shipwreck, utter desolation that He brings to our carnal mind and our old religious ways! It is His bitter cup of suffering that mellows our self-confident spirit! And without ceasing God works the everlasting of God, He neither slumbers nor sleeps, sang David in one of his sublime psalms. Absolutely without sleeping He works. He visits us in our dreams, He searches our reins and instructs us in the night seasons, as if He had no other man’s perfection on His hands but ours! We see, we hear, we taste, we feel Him and His work in us every day and night, and every hour and moment of the day and night! This is the experience of every son of God who walks with Christ in the spirit and is being changed into His image and likeness! (Preston Eby)
"....the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Jn 18:11
There is a part of the cup that I have drank of, off and on for some years now, and until a month ago I thought no one understood that which I was experiencing. I know we have a tendency to be myopic with our experiences, thinking they are common to all. However, I will not do that here, but delight instead to share with maybe a few that might personally know of this trying phenomena which is the crux and main purpose of this message. This phenomena is the experiencing of our "impotence" and that which I believe are the "last emptyings" that many of God's son's may be going through today. This might also be described as "the state of experiencing the deepest knowledge of our futility." It is this same experience, that I believe, has driven many into today's satanic New Age doctrines where the illusion of power and knowledge temporarily replaces this painful taste of man's futility.
How often, over the last couple years, I would share with my closest confidant, Joian, that I felt like I was just existing, nothing more, nothing less and this was a most horrendous and disparaging feeling. I would tell her how I felt completely inept and lacked any kind of energy to lift myself out of my dire straights which I suffered inward and also outwardly in my life. I would exclaim that, "my life is a mess and I can't do anything about it. And along with my lack of energy, it seems I can't even hear Him for any kind of direction to escape such a horrific fate."
How often I wondered if I was the only one that felt this way. So many times I questioned, "does anyone else feel this great insufficiency and impotence?"
Then one night while surfing around some of my favorite author's sites I came across this writing by as mature a saint as there be in the Kingdom. With my reading of this message I shouted, "Thank God! Some else is going through this and understands." With out any further adieu please allow me share that which gave me so much comfort in knowing there was another one that understood perfectly my feelings of impotence. This below is excerpted from a fuller message by Elaine Cooke.
"If our pursuit of sonship and kingship and priesthood contains any element of desire for a future, for greatness, for a name, for recognition, for power, for SELF we have not yet come to the altar of burnt offering, nor have passed through the consuming fire of God. O Father! Draw us to Thy Tabernacle door. Help us to offer there our offering, ourselves. Thou whose love is a fire, burn up and destroy all that hinders or refuses the triumph of Thy love. Consume the sacrifice and convert it into its own heavenly light nature, transform our beings into flames of love!
........ I now believe that this people have been brought to a place of such utter inability to bring forth even wind because God is about to birth something new a further extension of the Rock cut out without hands, with divine intervention only.
For several years I have been distressed by my inability to be self-disciplined about anything. In my spiritual youth it was necessary and simple. I would say in my heart, "I will no longer do this or that," or, "I will set my heart to seek God" whatever. Once said by the conviction of the Spirit, there was no problem doing it.
I now don’t even bother, for it will not be done! Or, I may manage to do it temporarily, but I cannot sustain it. Never before have I thought the Hand of God was in it to break even pride in my ability to outwork the Life of Christ within.
Now, I know, as Martha W. Robinson learned, that in our outturns of abandonment, we must let God will and do of His good pleasure. We can only cry out in groanings of spirit: "Now Lord hear and do what You have shown must be done in us! And this cry must be as the fire upon the altar never going out until He comes, as He did with Martha. All she was aware of was His presence with her and she didn’t know where self had gone!
This inability we have come to can no longer be used as an excuse for apathy, or for "going fishing", because of a " God’s sovereign He’s going to do it" attitude.
Neither can we produce something that only looks like the real thing. This is the utter death of Jordan’s waters. The Church has operated in this realm for years, producing Ishmaels by the bushel. "Well, I know God’s not doing much, but let’s try and get something happening. I know — we’ll see what the world can suggest." And, so — there they are!
I find myself doing all the "necessaries" and knowing that inwardly the groaning has begun. We’ve prayed all the words for years, but I believe that the Hour of Travail-ing to bring forth is now upon this company. To bring forth only Christ! This is His groaning the travail of His Soul within us and of course, of all creation. How long the travail will last, only He knows. But we know, because we have His Word: "Shall I bring to the birth and not bring forth?" When Zion travails, she shall bring forth the very seed that was planted in her earth!" Cooke
I truly pray that these gleanings I have shared here today might encourage that one or two that, who like me, might have wondered if you are the only one suffering the disparaging "days of impotence." Surely these must be the "last emptyings." I hope so and I'll pray and groan with you dear brother, dear sister ...... you whom God has chosen to send such preparatory affliction, that the world might soon be set free. "Precious, costly, valuable and rare in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."
Jack & Joian
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. Heb 10:36-39
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