Previously I mentioned the story of Tamar, Onan and Judah in Genesis 38 in my last post about Seperation. Many don’t understand the story in itself. Uncomfortably positioning itself in the story of Joseph, it’s really a one chapter x rated story about the story of a dysfunctional family involving, sex, deceit, prostitution, manipulation, abuse and incest with no social or ethical comment on it whatsoever (and they call the Bible boring).
It could in fact be any broken family today except much more scandalous, particularly for the culture of the time. Ultimately many in the church find the whole thing offensive and we are left with the first question which is what caused God to put such an unethical story in the bible in the first place?
Tamar ultimately gives birth to twins she names Zerah and Perez. The whole story is about seed and we begin to relate to the story when we begin to see beyond the sexual exploits and look at the personalities behind the story and what their real human story is. The birth of the twins gives the story in itself a whole lot more meaning and definition.
If we take the story literally then the name of the twins is translated as Brightness and Breakthrough. As Brightness is about to be born his hand comes out of the womb first and the midwife ties a scarlet cord around it. Before Brightness can be born Breakthrough pulls him back and comes out first.
In many situations in the Church today I can see we are in this exact same process. Three firmly spring to mind. There is a general sense of God moving in the Church and the Spirit is up to something yet it’s difficult to grasp exactly what that is or means yet define it. This story explains it.
Certainly the Spirit has been stirring up brightness in us, but we need to go beyond the initial brightness and receive breakthrough. The problem with Breakthrough is it is only at the birthing moment that we understand what it is, grasping it is therefore an issue in itself. What we need is to have the attitude of Jacob when he said to himself I'm going to get my blessing or I'm going to die trying, whatever the cost.
To give birth to what God is doing in us we need both. Brightness will only get us so far and what begins in Brightness need's to end with Breakthrough.
I remember the time in the mid 90's with the Toronto Blessing which reached a point where Revival was going to break out, or so we thought, but it never happened. Looking back I can see that this is because we primarily got caught up and carried away with the Brightness so much so that we could never give birth to the Breakthrough so it never came, in many ways I believe much good came out of this time but we ultimately aborted what God meant for us. The process that begins with brightness must be birthed by breakthrough. Brightness cannot do it alone, though often we still are wrapped up in it. Brightness without breakthrough ultimately gives birth to nothing. Birth in itself is not just painful but it's messy.
It is a case of generally, as the old adage goes, keeping the main thing the main thing. That is intimacy with Jesus Himself, personally. This whole story itself is told to us to show us the value that God puts on seed, particularly when that seed is people. The ultimate seed that was put at risk was the very line of Jesus Himself.
Deuteronomy 25:5-10 institutes the story behind the story, the story in Genesis shows that before this was instituted as law that it was practised as part of the duties of the family within it's culture. God's plan was that no-one would have to be the Family of the Unsadaled.
Tamar represents the desire to be impregnated or have your seed fertilised but is under the control of Onan who would rather spill the seed than sow it. Onan represents authority that is controlling and manipulative rather than that of biblical sacrificial provision, I think it would be a mistake to make the generalisation that Onan represents a picture of leadership, particularly leadership per see which we should view rightly as a gift from God (Ephesians 4), though this is true in part I have seen many leaders represent Tamar and their churches or what I call followership Onan.
As a quick snip it I shoud say if we translate the stroy to the culture we live in then because of the practices of abortion and human trafficking there is a great judgement coming on our generation. Some articles that I have read have caught my attention particularly in regard to London 2012 when it's predicted that London will become the hub of activity in the sex trade, partly it's difficult to compute how something that should be so amazing in my country is ultimately twisted and used for the most depraved form of abuse in our culture all in the name of the god of our culture, money. There seem's to be many so called experts who find it difficult to understand why our economies are being torn apart at the seems but if you look at what they are built and what goes on then I find it difficult to not understand. Anway back to the story...
The story resonates with me very well since I first heard it many years ago. I should say at this point something that really resonated with me just after I wrote the last post was a Word from Bob Jones talking about the glory returning to the church. Which very much goes in the flow of what I am about to say and was immediately something I thought was one of the most important prophecies I've heard for a long, long time.
After I went back home after being a student my one wish was to get as far from home as was reasonably possible. Having moved from one end of the country to the other I was shocked to find the state of the church where I moved to.
I soon began to find people very controlling and found myself stuck within a political system which was all about who you were connected to rather than who you were which had a deep religious undertone. When I left the church I was in I was more shocked to find the general state of the church around no better, the situation was similar if different and many I talked to had been deeply hurt and carried resentments that perpetauted the problems rather than solving them. The story of Tamar we find offensive but spiritually the same thing has been going on in our churches for years.
Since I moved in 1999 for many years there has not been much change but in the last couple of years I've felt that their has been not just a change in the church, but that which has held us back I've seen is beginning to brake off us. There is a change like when winter turns into spring and a sense that God is doing something and I also sense a changing of the guard somewhat, not necessarily physically though that may be true but a spiritual change in not just the atmosphere but in us.
I believe we are seeing the first buds of what will result in the full Glory of God being restored, it may take many years, in fact I would expect it to take many years but I do believe we will in the future look back and trace it's root to now.
Key to this primarily is the ministry of prayer itself changing the environments we find ourselves in. Many in the church have good intentions and certainly there are many great ministries involved in evangelism, justice and other ministries but ultimately there is only one ministry and that is to be a Royal Priesthood. Primarily one of the weaknesses in the church is there are many ministries that are worship for him but hardly any that are dedicated to him.
Actually in the heart of God I believe the other ministries He enjoys above all others is ministries to the next generation whether that be a school teacher, youth leader or a mother. Mother's in particularly are sowing something which will ultimately lead to a great harvest, which is chiefly bring up their children in the knowledge and ways of God yet is a topic pretty much unspoken of and unrecognised in the church today. Back to prayer..
Why would anyone want to set up not just a prayer ministry but a night and day prayer ministry? It is the revelation that He is worth it all. Many times in the last year I've heard stories of leadership that basically say Prayer is a waste of time and we need to be doing the real work of evangelism. That is not only unbiblical but is a great deception.
The chief lesson of todays prayer ministry is that we must learn that we must begin to like Mary and Martha switch from a pattern of doing thing for Jesus to just being with Him. God I believe is blessing the explosion of prayer around this world for this one reason. Just over a year ago I visited IHOP and made three observations. Firstly the manifest presence and glory of God was greater than any other place I've ever been to. Secondly this developed a manifest intimacy with Jesus like I've seen in no other's and thirdly this was creating a powerful army who were taking the spiritual ground for God.
Intercession in combination with Worship is beginning to plow the tough ground of the harvest, ground that before has largely remained unbroken. Breakthrough's in relationship are beginning to happen. Next on God's agenda is to show us that we need each other and one of the breakthrough's we need is a revelation of Partnership.
In the story of creation it tells us God said:
“Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds."
God created the world so once it was created the idea of seed being sown was in nature itself and everything in nature including us had in it's DNA the need reproduce, creation in itself could continue the creation process without any interference from God himself. The animals were created in Partnership. We see this all the way through until Adam is created and it tells the story of him being alone. We mistake being alone for being lonely. God created Eve for Adam not because Adam was lonely but he was alone because as part of our creational mandate we are created to be in partnership, Adam needed Eve but for Adam to understand his role in creation he needed to be without that which he needed to fulfil what God had called him to be. I always go back to the story of the Kingdom, being God creating a people for Himself, this is because our ultimate destiny is to be a bride for the Bridegroom God Jesus. Something I've said before is the need to understand the Bridal Paradigm.
Today the same story is true of the church. Breakthrough requires partnership to be sown properly. The Spirit is actively looking for a people who will partner with God and with each other.
I don't believe anything that God does from now can pass without some part of the church being offended. It is too easy to be a spiller than a sower, to sow something will cost us something. Breakthrough is in itself offensive and will cause us many more problems than Brightness. In many ways everyone like's the brightness because it doesn't cause any problem's, it is also to easy alone. Breakthrough asks us if we are really prepared to sacrifice to nurture it. We need Breakthrough in partnership with Brightness.
One of the great mistakes of the church in recent years and this is a problem across many streams is we like to copy the successes of others. We see a blueprint that works and we think we can just copy it. There are many great movements both of Church History and recent times but they have succeeded because they have been prepared to pay the price to give birth to what God was doing. Most of us want the fruit without paying the cost of the seed. Nature tells us a seed needs to die before it gives life, Jesus actually taught this himself. That cost for us is dying to ourselves. Most of the time what we do doesn't work because we are not prepared to pay the cost of the price that is needed to be paid. Much of the activity of the church in the last one or two decades or so has been a waste because we have been chasing the latest big fad but not willing to pay the same cost to make it work.
A word I have heard for the last 18 odd years and no doubt will hear for the next 18 is shaking. If you think about being shaken then physically it is a violent process. 2011 was definitely the year that God shook the earth. I think we need to be more somber and sober when 'shaking' is mentioned and think about what the consequences of that actually mean.
If we go back to something I have mentioned before that the first physical shaking of last year was the earthquake in Christchurch. To go over this again it is a sign from God of the shaking that He is going to bring to the church. I don’t think it is by chance that either God chose Christchurch (you’ll understand what I mean by this if you understand why Christchurch is called Christchurch), that the most publicity generated out of the damage was to the Cathedral and the most damage to the Cathedral was the spire, what I would call the Babel element of the physical church.
It will be a violent shaking but it will break off everything that seperates us from Him so we must desire it eagerly. The difference between those who just seek His Brightness and those that seek breakthrough is the latter will not fear what is coming in the Long term. In the word’s of Misty Edwards ‘People Get Ready’ from Relentless.
One of the reasons we can talk of breakthrough causing offense in the Church is because our history is littered with it. A term I have also heared recently is ‘Governmental Authority’, if we look at History then God has had to move outside the Governmental Authority of the Church to move and it is those in places of authority that reject what God is doing.
Methodism is a prime example. Methodism never became a denomination, that is a governmental authority in itself, until well after the death of John and Charles Wesley, its’ founders. The total number of actual churches the Wesley Brothers created or planted within or without Methodism is a grand total of 0.
The vision they had was for renewal within the established Church of England. This meant Methodists were encouraged to attend C of E church gatherings. Methodist gatherings were run as extra meetings outside the times of the C of E gatherings not in conflict as one may imagine with the vision to invigorate the Established Church. Methodism didn’t have traditional ministers, rather itinerant preachers and they weren’t allowed to administer any of the sacraments. This was all the case until well after the death of both Wesley Brothers.
When the traditional church wouldn't allow the Wesley brothers to preach in the pulpit they took to the highways and byeways and preached in fields, the rest as they say is History.
Methodism is the prime example of the fact that God moves outside the established Governmental Authority, yet in the UK potestantism (that is the established church) has not been more affected by any other individuals than it has been by John and Charles Wesley. This is the strange paradox of our history but has been echoed for the last five to six hundred years since the seed of the reformation was planted.
No recent stream was established without God moving someone to work outside the Governmental Authority of the day. I am not trying to establish a place where we do not respect authority but I do find ironic that people talk about 'governmental authority' but if the Farther's of the streams those same people are in believed the same things those streams wouldn't exist in the first place. Really it's a sort of blind hypocrisy.
God is using both those outside and inside the authority to bring His Kingdom and I believe it will need a partnership of both that will see the greatest breakthrough not just in living memory but for a long, long time.
It could in fact be any broken family today except much more scandalous, particularly for the culture of the time. Ultimately many in the church find the whole thing offensive and we are left with the first question which is what caused God to put such an unethical story in the bible in the first place?
Tamar ultimately gives birth to twins she names Zerah and Perez. The whole story is about seed and we begin to relate to the story when we begin to see beyond the sexual exploits and look at the personalities behind the story and what their real human story is. The birth of the twins gives the story in itself a whole lot more meaning and definition.
If we take the story literally then the name of the twins is translated as Brightness and Breakthrough. As Brightness is about to be born his hand comes out of the womb first and the midwife ties a scarlet cord around it. Before Brightness can be born Breakthrough pulls him back and comes out first.
In many situations in the Church today I can see we are in this exact same process. Three firmly spring to mind. There is a general sense of God moving in the Church and the Spirit is up to something yet it’s difficult to grasp exactly what that is or means yet define it. This story explains it.
Certainly the Spirit has been stirring up brightness in us, but we need to go beyond the initial brightness and receive breakthrough. The problem with Breakthrough is it is only at the birthing moment that we understand what it is, grasping it is therefore an issue in itself. What we need is to have the attitude of Jacob when he said to himself I'm going to get my blessing or I'm going to die trying, whatever the cost.
To give birth to what God is doing in us we need both. Brightness will only get us so far and what begins in Brightness need's to end with Breakthrough.
I remember the time in the mid 90's with the Toronto Blessing which reached a point where Revival was going to break out, or so we thought, but it never happened. Looking back I can see that this is because we primarily got caught up and carried away with the Brightness so much so that we could never give birth to the Breakthrough so it never came, in many ways I believe much good came out of this time but we ultimately aborted what God meant for us. The process that begins with brightness must be birthed by breakthrough. Brightness cannot do it alone, though often we still are wrapped up in it. Brightness without breakthrough ultimately gives birth to nothing. Birth in itself is not just painful but it's messy.
It is a case of generally, as the old adage goes, keeping the main thing the main thing. That is intimacy with Jesus Himself, personally. This whole story itself is told to us to show us the value that God puts on seed, particularly when that seed is people. The ultimate seed that was put at risk was the very line of Jesus Himself.
Deuteronomy 25:5-10 institutes the story behind the story, the story in Genesis shows that before this was instituted as law that it was practised as part of the duties of the family within it's culture. God's plan was that no-one would have to be the Family of the Unsadaled.
Tamar represents the desire to be impregnated or have your seed fertilised but is under the control of Onan who would rather spill the seed than sow it. Onan represents authority that is controlling and manipulative rather than that of biblical sacrificial provision, I think it would be a mistake to make the generalisation that Onan represents a picture of leadership, particularly leadership per see which we should view rightly as a gift from God (Ephesians 4), though this is true in part I have seen many leaders represent Tamar and their churches or what I call followership Onan.
As a quick snip it I shoud say if we translate the stroy to the culture we live in then because of the practices of abortion and human trafficking there is a great judgement coming on our generation. Some articles that I have read have caught my attention particularly in regard to London 2012 when it's predicted that London will become the hub of activity in the sex trade, partly it's difficult to compute how something that should be so amazing in my country is ultimately twisted and used for the most depraved form of abuse in our culture all in the name of the god of our culture, money. There seem's to be many so called experts who find it difficult to understand why our economies are being torn apart at the seems but if you look at what they are built and what goes on then I find it difficult to not understand. Anway back to the story...
The story resonates with me very well since I first heard it many years ago. I should say at this point something that really resonated with me just after I wrote the last post was a Word from Bob Jones talking about the glory returning to the church. Which very much goes in the flow of what I am about to say and was immediately something I thought was one of the most important prophecies I've heard for a long, long time.
After I went back home after being a student my one wish was to get as far from home as was reasonably possible. Having moved from one end of the country to the other I was shocked to find the state of the church where I moved to.
I soon began to find people very controlling and found myself stuck within a political system which was all about who you were connected to rather than who you were which had a deep religious undertone. When I left the church I was in I was more shocked to find the general state of the church around no better, the situation was similar if different and many I talked to had been deeply hurt and carried resentments that perpetauted the problems rather than solving them. The story of Tamar we find offensive but spiritually the same thing has been going on in our churches for years.
Since I moved in 1999 for many years there has not been much change but in the last couple of years I've felt that their has been not just a change in the church, but that which has held us back I've seen is beginning to brake off us. There is a change like when winter turns into spring and a sense that God is doing something and I also sense a changing of the guard somewhat, not necessarily physically though that may be true but a spiritual change in not just the atmosphere but in us.
I believe we are seeing the first buds of what will result in the full Glory of God being restored, it may take many years, in fact I would expect it to take many years but I do believe we will in the future look back and trace it's root to now.
Key to this primarily is the ministry of prayer itself changing the environments we find ourselves in. Many in the church have good intentions and certainly there are many great ministries involved in evangelism, justice and other ministries but ultimately there is only one ministry and that is to be a Royal Priesthood. Primarily one of the weaknesses in the church is there are many ministries that are worship for him but hardly any that are dedicated to him.
Actually in the heart of God I believe the other ministries He enjoys above all others is ministries to the next generation whether that be a school teacher, youth leader or a mother. Mother's in particularly are sowing something which will ultimately lead to a great harvest, which is chiefly bring up their children in the knowledge and ways of God yet is a topic pretty much unspoken of and unrecognised in the church today. Back to prayer..
Why would anyone want to set up not just a prayer ministry but a night and day prayer ministry? It is the revelation that He is worth it all. Many times in the last year I've heard stories of leadership that basically say Prayer is a waste of time and we need to be doing the real work of evangelism. That is not only unbiblical but is a great deception.
The chief lesson of todays prayer ministry is that we must learn that we must begin to like Mary and Martha switch from a pattern of doing thing for Jesus to just being with Him. God I believe is blessing the explosion of prayer around this world for this one reason. Just over a year ago I visited IHOP and made three observations. Firstly the manifest presence and glory of God was greater than any other place I've ever been to. Secondly this developed a manifest intimacy with Jesus like I've seen in no other's and thirdly this was creating a powerful army who were taking the spiritual ground for God.
Intercession in combination with Worship is beginning to plow the tough ground of the harvest, ground that before has largely remained unbroken. Breakthrough's in relationship are beginning to happen. Next on God's agenda is to show us that we need each other and one of the breakthrough's we need is a revelation of Partnership.
In the story of creation it tells us God said:
“Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds."
God created the world so once it was created the idea of seed being sown was in nature itself and everything in nature including us had in it's DNA the need reproduce, creation in itself could continue the creation process without any interference from God himself. The animals were created in Partnership. We see this all the way through until Adam is created and it tells the story of him being alone. We mistake being alone for being lonely. God created Eve for Adam not because Adam was lonely but he was alone because as part of our creational mandate we are created to be in partnership, Adam needed Eve but for Adam to understand his role in creation he needed to be without that which he needed to fulfil what God had called him to be. I always go back to the story of the Kingdom, being God creating a people for Himself, this is because our ultimate destiny is to be a bride for the Bridegroom God Jesus. Something I've said before is the need to understand the Bridal Paradigm.
Today the same story is true of the church. Breakthrough requires partnership to be sown properly. The Spirit is actively looking for a people who will partner with God and with each other.
I don't believe anything that God does from now can pass without some part of the church being offended. It is too easy to be a spiller than a sower, to sow something will cost us something. Breakthrough is in itself offensive and will cause us many more problems than Brightness. In many ways everyone like's the brightness because it doesn't cause any problem's, it is also to easy alone. Breakthrough asks us if we are really prepared to sacrifice to nurture it. We need Breakthrough in partnership with Brightness.
One of the great mistakes of the church in recent years and this is a problem across many streams is we like to copy the successes of others. We see a blueprint that works and we think we can just copy it. There are many great movements both of Church History and recent times but they have succeeded because they have been prepared to pay the price to give birth to what God was doing. Most of us want the fruit without paying the cost of the seed. Nature tells us a seed needs to die before it gives life, Jesus actually taught this himself. That cost for us is dying to ourselves. Most of the time what we do doesn't work because we are not prepared to pay the cost of the price that is needed to be paid. Much of the activity of the church in the last one or two decades or so has been a waste because we have been chasing the latest big fad but not willing to pay the same cost to make it work.
A word I have heard for the last 18 odd years and no doubt will hear for the next 18 is shaking. If you think about being shaken then physically it is a violent process. 2011 was definitely the year that God shook the earth. I think we need to be more somber and sober when 'shaking' is mentioned and think about what the consequences of that actually mean.
If we go back to something I have mentioned before that the first physical shaking of last year was the earthquake in Christchurch. To go over this again it is a sign from God of the shaking that He is going to bring to the church. I don’t think it is by chance that either God chose Christchurch (you’ll understand what I mean by this if you understand why Christchurch is called Christchurch), that the most publicity generated out of the damage was to the Cathedral and the most damage to the Cathedral was the spire, what I would call the Babel element of the physical church.
It will be a violent shaking but it will break off everything that seperates us from Him so we must desire it eagerly. The difference between those who just seek His Brightness and those that seek breakthrough is the latter will not fear what is coming in the Long term. In the word’s of Misty Edwards ‘People Get Ready’ from Relentless.
One of the reasons we can talk of breakthrough causing offense in the Church is because our history is littered with it. A term I have also heared recently is ‘Governmental Authority’, if we look at History then God has had to move outside the Governmental Authority of the Church to move and it is those in places of authority that reject what God is doing.
Methodism is a prime example. Methodism never became a denomination, that is a governmental authority in itself, until well after the death of John and Charles Wesley, its’ founders. The total number of actual churches the Wesley Brothers created or planted within or without Methodism is a grand total of 0.
The vision they had was for renewal within the established Church of England. This meant Methodists were encouraged to attend C of E church gatherings. Methodist gatherings were run as extra meetings outside the times of the C of E gatherings not in conflict as one may imagine with the vision to invigorate the Established Church. Methodism didn’t have traditional ministers, rather itinerant preachers and they weren’t allowed to administer any of the sacraments. This was all the case until well after the death of both Wesley Brothers.
When the traditional church wouldn't allow the Wesley brothers to preach in the pulpit they took to the highways and byeways and preached in fields, the rest as they say is History.
Methodism is the prime example of the fact that God moves outside the established Governmental Authority, yet in the UK potestantism (that is the established church) has not been more affected by any other individuals than it has been by John and Charles Wesley. This is the strange paradox of our history but has been echoed for the last five to six hundred years since the seed of the reformation was planted.
No recent stream was established without God moving someone to work outside the Governmental Authority of the day. I am not trying to establish a place where we do not respect authority but I do find ironic that people talk about 'governmental authority' but if the Farther's of the streams those same people are in believed the same things those streams wouldn't exist in the first place. Really it's a sort of blind hypocrisy.
God is using both those outside and inside the authority to bring His Kingdom and I believe it will need a partnership of both that will see the greatest breakthrough not just in living memory but for a long, long time.
