There Is No Hell Prepared For Sinners (Don't jump to conclusions here...)

Let me just come out there and say it: There is no hell that has been prepared for "sinners." Dante was wrong.

Now don't jump to conclusions. That doesn't mean that there isn't something hellish; there is. The Bible doesn't talk much about it, and I can understand: it's an ugly subject.

Jesus taught about "everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Maybe this is the "lake of fire" of Revelation 20. Sure sounds like it.

But did you see who it's prepared for? It's prepared for the devil and the rest of the angels that followed the angel named Lucifer when he was tossed on his ear out of Heaven. 

It's a topic that the Bible never answers very clearly (for all that there are a lot of Bible thumpers that seem to have all the answers!), so I can't speak clearly about it except this: it isn't prepared for people.

I guess there are some people who are so completely committed to the things of demons (often called "sin"), that they refuse to be separated from them. I guess that when the devil and his angels are chucked into that "everlasting fire" that the people that refuse to let them go... well, ... they go with them.

(I understand that this is not consistent with what you and I were taught in Sunday School. The truth is that a lot of what we were taught in Sunday School can't be supported by the Book. Let's stick to the book.)

Running the Race

I’ve been frustrated at some people recently, but I think I may be doing the same thing that they’re doing. I hate it when that happens.

In the past couple of decades, God has awakened a bunch of stuff inside of me, and I’ve gone from being a “faithful churchgoer” and a “good Christian” to being a lover. I’m running this race with more passion and more determination and more energy than I have since I was first saved.

As a result, I’m further along in the race than I used to be, the race I refer to as “That I might know Him!” Some of the people I used to jog alongside are still jogging, and we don’t fellowship as much any more, because I’m running with pretty much everything I have, and they’re still jogging. I don’t mean this to sound prideful, but I’m running ahead of where they’re running, and we aren’t close enough in the race to treasure the same things any longer.

Recently, a friend got in my face. He’s running the race, and very recently, God has lit the fire in him that He has lit in me, so my friend is running as hard (at least) as I am now, but he’s starting from way back there, from among the joggers. Among the joggers, my friend is now leading the pack.

He read some of the things that I’m posting, describing some of the new treasures that Father has been unveiling as I’ve run hard these last couple of decades, and my friend, who is still running among the joggers, didn’t understand the treasures that I’ve recently found. So he got in my face, and frankly, he ripped me a new one. “I’ve never heard of these things! These new revelations can’t be from God! Nobody that I’m running with has ever heard of them.”

Frankly, it hurt. It hurt a lot. But “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles.” Father comforted me, and showed me the race we were running. And then he showed me the bigger picture.

My friend was making a mistake: he was running ahead of a pack of runners, ahead of everyone he used to be jogging with. That was a glorious thing, and Father is real proud of him. But my friend was only looking at the people that are following after him: he’s only looking behind him, and so he thinks that he’s running at the head of this race, leading everyone who is running in this race, able to speak and able to correct every runner in the race. He’s not looking ahead, not seeing the multitude of runners that are ahead of him, many of whom have been running hard for so long that they’re several turns ahead of him, out of his sight beyond him.

And so it’s hard for him to think of others running ahead of him, who might have revelation that he doesn’t have yet, but which he will have, if he keeps running as well as he is now. But when he encounters those other runners now – on Facebook or some other social venue – he thinks they’re running the wrong race, because they’re running a path he knows nothing about, and he thinks he has to correct us.

So I get hit with this fiery dart, and so I look back to see where the “attack” is coming from, and I see it’s coming from my friend running behind me, my friend who doesn’t yet understand the things that I’m discovering in God. I realize, it’s out of love – or at least out of concern for his friend – that he’s wounding me, that he’s slowing me from my own race, that he’s drawing my attention behind me.

And my attention is indeed behind me, helping some people catch up, dodging others who want to “fix” me, and remembering how I used to be a contented old jogger, back in the day, thankful that I’ve learned to run.

Part of me wants to slow down my pace, to drop back in the race to where I can run side-by-side with my friend. But Father reminds me that this can’t be a solution: there will always be someone slower than me, maybe someone who’s dropped out of the race altogether, who’s offended by the fact that others are making progress and he is not: someone will always be offended at those who are running the race. It’s death to stop running, and Someone else has already died for them, Someone else is encouraging them to run their own race, and He’s a capable coach: I can trust my friends to Him.

Father then gently pointed out that I’m doing the same thing. I’m looking behind me, at the people I’ve passed, at the people catching up. I’ve taken my eyes off the prize. I had started to measure my progress by those behind me. That’s a mistake!

He reminds me of the rules for this race: “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Looking forward, I’m startled to discover we are in fact surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses! Oh my! I’d lost track of them.

Come on! Let’s run!

Remarkably Intelligent People vs God's People

WARNING: Politically incorrect musings ahead. Just trying to examine a tough topic honestly. 

I’ve been visiting with some Remarkably Intelligent People recently (I didn’t know IQ scores went that high! Scary!) I’ve observed that a number of them have real difficulty being Christians and relating to the God of the Bible. (Not all, just a large fraction.)

It occurs to me that one reason may be because of God’s followers. Aw, heck: several reasons may be because of God’s followers. Let me explain.

Because of the merciful nature of God, and of his people (when we do it right), Christianity does understandably draw a lot of broken people who find mercy or acceptance (hopefully both) that they may have had difficulty finding elsewhere. The reality is that broken people make broken choices, sometimes justify those broken choices, and sometimes their understanding of God is characterized by those bad choices. For example, if I were to condemn you for not living up to my own moral standard, and then declaim that this is the way God is, a Remarkably Intelligent Person is probably intelligent enough not to be drawn to a god characterized by moralistic bigotry.

But in addition, in many of the Hallowed Halls of the Faith, thinking is not only not encouraged, it is occasionally actively discouraged, even (foolishly) presented as a conflict to faith. “Evolution can’t be true, because the Bible says God created everything” not only misses the point of the conversation, it demonstrates that people who think are not welcome to that conversation.  

And then there’s the issue that Christians very often speak gibberish. In our more lucid moments, we sometimes call it “Christianese,” but it's gibberish. We make noises that nobody else uses, and expect other people to know what our strange vocalizations mean. Very often, we’ll abbreviate a whole conversation into just a conclusion, bypassing the fact that it took someone (hopefully ourselves) months to arrive there. For people with very healthy minds, the process is the point of the conversation: they’re not interested in taking our word for something we figured out months ago.

For example, I’ve been known to say, “God said it; I believe it; that settles it,” as a reminder of the precious conclusion I arrived at from a very long, very personal evaluation of what I understood about the scriptures. That declaration is meaningful to me, but not to the Remarkably Intelligent Person who hasn’t been through my year-long analysis. But if I just quote it, merely because someone I respect said it and I think it gives credibility to my argument: please just don’t go there. That’s insulting to intelligence in general.

Finally, all of the Remarkably Intelligent People I know – whether they are Christians or not – know what the Bible says. Generally they know the Book better than I, even the unbelieving Remarkably Intelligent People, and I’ve been studying it for 40 years! One of the characteristics of remarkable intelligence is the ability to see the remarkable difference between what the Bible declares Christians should be like (Jesus set up this booby-trap in John 17:23), or the incongruity between the vengeful God preached from the OT and the God of Love as he reveals himself in the NT. The fact that most of God’s people can’t reconcile either mismatch is also not overlooked.

I am NOT trying to say that Christianity isn’t a good fit for intelligent people. Nor am I trying to say that we need to live up to their standard of intellectual analysis.

What I AM suggesting is nothing new: let’s not be stupid. Let’s see if we can speak English (or another actual language) instead of religious gibberish. Let’s take the time to figure out what we actually believe, and more importantly for our own growth: why we believe it.

In other words, let’s learn to be genuine people, relating genuinely to God and to each other. And let’s learn to feed ourselves.

COMMENT: These are politically incorrect musings. I've just been trying to examine a tough topic honestly. If you're offended: please get over it; this isn't about you. 

Interpreting Scripture (and Theology) Through Jesus

I’ve been thinking about how we handle some of the more incongruous portions of scripture.

The book of James, for example. Martin Luther wanted to toss the book out of the Bible; he called it the “Epistle of Straw,” and he had a good reason: James is such a completely different presentation of God than the rest of the New Testament. It doesn’t mention Jesus’ name even once. How can we have a book of the Bible that doesn’t point to Jesus?

But eventually, we figured it out. James’ epistle doesn’t stand alone. It stands in context with the rest of the NT, and we interpret James’ comments about the value of works, for example, in the light of the rest of the revelation about who Jesus is and what he has done.

Because Jesus is all about grace apprehended by faith instead of by works, we know how to interpret James’ words about works: through the life of Jesus, through the cross of Jesus. James is talking about working out our faith, working from the forgiveness we’ve received, not working to earn forgiveness.

If we didn’t interpret those passages, through the life of Jesus, if instead we used James’ words about works to define Jesus (I have met some confused, law-based people who have), then we could seriously misunderstand Jesus.  

We’ve figured out how to interpret James. Why do we not, I wonder, apply the same lesson to Revelation?

We should take the difficult to understand fire-and-brimstone passages of Revelation, and interpret them through the very clear revelation of the life and words of Jesus. “OK. Jesus taught us that God is perfect love, and Jesus himself took all condemnation on himself on the Cross. So how do I understand the four horsemen in that light?”

But there aren’t very many people who do that. I’ve met hundreds of people who take this most-bizarre, most difficult-to-interpret book of the New Testament, and use it to define Jesus by employing their best guess about what the strange imagery and bizarre metaphors are referencing. It requires that they completely ignore the clear revelation of the life of Jesus in four first-hand testimonials, and we ignore the clear revelation of his own teaching.

I am NOT saying that either James or Revelation are not inspired scripture, or that we can do without their teaching. I AM saying that we must interpret these passages through the greater revelation of Jesus, and not use them to define our understanding of Jesus. We always use the clear passage to define the less clear passage, and there is no clearer understanding of God than the person of Jesus.

Jesus rebuked people who would “strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel.” I’ve met a bunch of those people. That’s gotta give them indigestion.

Jesus is the clearest interpretation of God that there has ever been: God himself became human, and walked among humans so that we could know who God is. We need to base our understanding of Scripture off of that clearest revelation; everything else that we think we understand about God must be interpreted through the life of Jesus. If we hold a belief about God that is inconsistent with him, then we need to let it go.

We need to apply the lessons we’ve learned from the book of James to Revelation and other less-clear passages about who God is.

Does God Harm People?

Does God harm people? Does he beat up his kids? Does God bring sickness, disease, even death, in order to accomplish good in his kids?

One verse that people use to support this theological drivel is Hebrews 12:6, which reads (in the NKJV):
 

For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives."

A quick glance at a Greek lexicon will help us.

The Greek word used for “chasten” is παιδεύω. The Strongs lexicon (http://bit.ly/TbnnDR) says the primary meaning of παιδεύω is:

1) to train children
   a) to be instructed or taught or learn
   b) to cause one to learn

Since the immediate context is about fathers training their children, and specifically compares God’s fathering to human fathering, this is an excellent contextual fit. The idea is more of a firm coach than a child-abuser, and the context, very much about fathering, supports the concept of instructing, training, coaching.

By contrast, when was the last time you heard of a father that brought home a polio virus to infect his son as an expression of his love? What loving dad would cut his daughter’s brake lines so she’d crash and spend a month in ICU? Who in their right mind would respect such a father or hold him up as an example for others to follow? [Hint: it wouldn’t be God!]

Does he train us hard? Well, when was the last time that a competent coach who trained his players gently? Did they every win anything? Sure, training is hard. But it is not abusive. It's not about sickness, death and destruction; that's somebody else's job description. Jesus came that we “may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (Romans 10:10)

The second half of the verse is considered metaphor by Greek language scholars, and it is in the Hebrew pattern of “parallelism”: the second phrase complements or clarifies the first phrase: Yes, God trains his kids. “For whom the Lord loves, he trains, and he spanks his sons when they need it.” Parallel ideas: the first phrase tells us how to interpret the second phrase.

A better theological foundation about the nature of God is found earlier in Hebrews: in 1:3, the Bible declares, “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being.” Note: “Exact representation.”  

In other words: Whatever is true about God’s being is demonstrated in Jesus. In other words, if you don’t see something in Jesus, you’re in error if you believe it about God.

A lot of people have this OT image of God always ready to smite someone, always ready to judge people with death and disaster. That’s poppycock! How many people did Jesus smite? How many did he kill? How many times did someone come to Jesus, “the exact representation” of God’s being, asking to be healed, only to be told, “No, it’s better if you stay sick, because you’re learning something from the sickness.”

That, of course, is the theological equivalent of saying, “The devil – whose job it is to steal, kill and destroy – can do a better job of raising God’s kids through stealing killing and destroying, than God can do through loving them.” That, I’m afraid, is profitable for nothing more serious than fertilizing your tomatoes: run away from such stinky, libelous accusations of God’s character!

Someone will say (and often loudly and rudely): “But God judges sin! God is holy!”

Yes, God is holy. And yes God judges sin; in fact he has already judged sin: Jesus was judged for sin! He was crucified, nailed to a tree, because of sin; because of all sin! In fact, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

So then, whose sins did Jesus miss? Whose sins are still un-judged? Whose sin is too big for the sacrifice of the Incarnate Son of God? Who did God overlook in his dying for the entire world? There ain’t none! (Though you and I know that there are some folks that are working hard to reject his payment for their sin; that’s a different conversation, and involves Revelation 20.) 

Let’s acknowledge that God is actually good, and let’s expect goodness from him.

Home Fellowship or Church Fellowship?

There has been a fair bit of discussion among Believers recently about what it means to “go to church” or “be part of a church.” 

The illustration (it’s not model) that the Bible gives us for where the church met in Jerusalem is in Acts 5:42: “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”

[Note that there were at least 5000 believers (Acts 4:4) in the temple courts (Acts 5:12), and they had no PA system. It was not physically possible for one man to stand in front of that many people and communicate well with them all. Either they had miraculous sound reinforcement (I think Jesus used this method sometimes), or each apostle taught a more modestly-sized portion of the larger crowd. Either way, they spent more time (every day) meeting in homes.]

Later in Jerusalem, and also in Asia, Paul showed another model when the persecution showed up: Act 19:9 “But when some were hardened and did not believe…. he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.”

Paul did make use of synagogues, but as places to practice evangelism, not the place for the fellowship of the saints: the synagogue was their history, but not their community any longer: they were no longer the People of the Law.

I observe that the Biblical model involves Christians meeting in public spaces (the temple courts were perhaps the social equivalent of the shopping mall; the School of Tyrannus might equate to the local high school gym) for training. But it’s clear that the church was more equated with people’s houses in the Biblical model (Acts 8:3, Romans 16:5; 1Cor 16:19; Colossians 4:15; Philemon 1:2.…). Some say that the only reason they met in people’s homes was persecution, and that may be a factor, but that factor doesn’t seem to be a major issue in the Book.

I also observe that when the church was meeting among the Jewish people, it used Jewish methods and settings (temple grounds), but when it met among the gentiles, it used gentile methods and locations (School of Tyrannus). It appears that while Christianity – the Church – came from Jewish roots, it is not a Jewish function. The Judiazers were one of the greatest heresies opposed by New Testament apostles. The apostolic conclusion: you don’t need to become or to stay Jewish in order to become a Christian.

In our “Western Culture”, we make everything into a mass-production factory. We’ve done it with education in the public schools, with government, with sports, with our shopping malls. So of course we’ll do it with our church-life.

My point is NOT that mass-producing Christian fellowship is inherently evil. My point is that it that it is equally not evil to choose a different model for fellowship.

I home-schooled my kids, for about half of their education. In hindsight, they preferred the homeschooling to the public schooling, and I observe that they learned more during those years, they encountered far less social “drama”, and they where happier in the non-factory education model rather than the factory model. Home-schooling is WAY more work than shipping the kids off to the local public school, which is rather factory-like.

I shop at WalMart. A little bit. (I figure that my prayers for the company have more authority if I have an investment in the company, but that’s another conversation.) But I also shop at the local farmer’s market. The factory shopping experience has more variety, and often has a lower cost-of-participation (selling price), but the quality of food that I get at the farmer’s market is hugely superior. In addition, the instruction I get from the farmer’s market about how to use the item that I’m purchasing is light years ahead of what I get from the factory.

As for sports, I prefer to play Frisbee golf with my friends rather than watch the Seahawks or the World Cup on TV. It’s way better exercise, better fellowship, and the relationships forged there actually means something, whereas the pro sports have no eternal significance that I can discern. On the other hand, I don’t ever have sore muscles from watching the factory sports on TV, and I can switch channels freely when I get bored.

In the same way, I’ve learned (the hard way, frankly) that farmer’s market version of church, the home-school version of fellowship produces a superior product, albeit at a greater cost.

We have this value system in America that if it isn’t done on a big scale, it isn’t really the right way to do it. I’m looked at as weird because I don’t have a TV and don’t like the shopping mall. And so many American Christians appear to look down on their brethren and, er… “sistren” who choose to find their fellowship outside of the American Church Factory.

I say all this to say this: Christian fellowship in the home is actually “more Biblical” (found more commonly in the Bible) and more historically accurate (existed long before) than the building of large and expensive “church” buildings.

People who choose home fellowship should not feel inferior to people who choose the large, formal setting for their fellowship. The mega-church is not somehow “better” Christianity. Neither should people whose primary fellowship is in the home feel or declare superiority to others who find a place in the large fellowship.

Let’s find ways to enjoy unity, to celebrate each other.

A New Wave of Rookies

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, when the teachers were so prominent, we saw the big name teachers (Chuck Smith, Chuck Swindall, RC Sproul, …) and when we thought of teachers, these names came to mind. But there were tens of thousands of gifted and anointed teachers popping up around the land, some filling pulpits, others leading home groups around the land.

Teaching gifts fit in well with existing church leadership, and in some cases, help existing leaders to lead better. The “office of the teacher” is a 5-fold leadership office anyway, but all believers are commanded to be able to teach, able to disciple others, so there wasn’t a lot of controversy.

Later, when God breathed on the prophetic, we saw big name prophets (Bob Jones, Bill Hamon, Paul Cain and others) come to the forefront. And while they were blazing the trail (and taking the hits) to re-introduce prophetic gifts to the entire church, prophetic gifts began sprouting among believers from coast to coast.

Prophetic gifts come in three biblical flavors: manifestations of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12), ministries from the Father (Romans 12), and the 5-fold gift of the prophet, from the Head of the Church, Jesus himself (Ephesians 4). There’s been confusion between prophetic ministries and prophets, but we’re figuring that out now.

Unlike the teaching gifts of the previous wave, prophetic gifts did not fit comfortably with church leadership, so most of the budding prophetic people lived in hiding, or masqueraded as worshippers, intercessors and exhorters; a few used their new prophetic gifts to support their teaching or pastoring or leading gifts. A very few brave souls began to confess, “God says I’m a prophet,” and model their itinerant ministry after the traveling evangelist.

More recently, the church has grown more comfortable with both prophets and prophetic ministries as maturity has been showing up in the gifts, as people are finding their place among other ministries, and as the strangeness is replaced by familiarity.

We’re now in the midst of God’s restoration of apostolic gifts. There are big name apostles (Peter Wagner, Dutch Sheets, Che Ahn, John Eckhart, Heidi Baker) that have brought the church’s attention to the topic.

But as with the other movements, while the “big names” are pioneering the 21^st century version of the office of the apostle, there are also thousands of un-famous apostles in, and outside of, local churches across the land. Some successful local church pastors are taking the title “apostle” for themselves, or having it thrust upon them by peers or congregants; many of these seem to think that an “apostle” is just a really, really successful or respected pastor.

Mostly, church leadership doesn’t know what to do with young apostles. Where immature teachers could themselves be taught, and where immature prophets could be shuffled off to the intercessors, young apostles aren’t as easy to push around or marginalize: that’s not rebellion, it’s part of the calling.

So if you as a leader, as an influencer among the people of God, if you find a young man or woman who’s bumbling confusedly about in what just might be a budding apostolic calling, what will you do with them? If you find a less-young man or woman who’s been walking with God for 30 years, but may be stumbling into a new apostolic anointing (and there are more of these than I expected!), how will you respond to them? 

If your job as a pastor, as a teacher, as a prophet is to “equip the saints for works of ministry…” then how will you equip these young apostles? How will you discern the real apostles from the wanna-be apostles? Will you receive them, rough as they are, or will you try to shuffle them off out of the public eye? (Hint: good answers to these questions will be more about relationship than about programs!) 

The point of this article is not to outline an Apostolic Training Program, but to acknowledge that you and I may very well have dozens of immature, rookie apostles within our spheres of influence, and to challenge us to get to know them, to not write them off as the proverbial bull in the china shop (which they appear to be). Maybe we can even give some thought as to how to encourage them as they pursue the mysteries that God is calling them to.

What are you going to do with them? It will affect the next generation of the church in your region!

Properly Discerning Judgment

Recently, I'd been asking Father for an upgrade in the gift of discernment, as He’d been emphasizing 1 Corinthians 14:29 to me (“Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.”). And what do you know, but suddenly I began getting scores of submissions for the www.northwestprophetic.com website, many of them with what I would call a fairly judgment-oriented interpretation.

Cool! I was getting schooled! 

So I brought each word to Him for my lessons, and he’d have me separately discern the revelation portion of the prophecy from the interpretation portion. In those particular prophetic words, over and over, I sensed the Holy Spirit in the revelation, but not in the interpretation. 

“They’re interpreting through their expectations. They’re not listening to me, but they’re listening to what they already believe,” he said.

One illustration from this season: one of the prophecies came from a fairly mature prophet, a mature man whom I knew and trusted personally. It spoke about the county where he lived, and it carried a deadline: two weeks away. The revelation spoke of earthquakes and volcanoes, and I could sense God in it. The interpretation spoke of disaster and judgment, and I did not sense God on it (whew!). I heard Father say, “This is not a literal revelation; it’s a metaphor. The earthquakes are about things that he thought were stable getting shaken, and the volcanoes are about deep, hidden things being brought to light, violently.” I had the fairly strong sense that the word applied to him personally.

I asked the prophet if maybe that word could be metaphorical rather than literal, and he rejected it out of hand. OK. Maybe I’m wrong. But God was not directing me to respond as if it were literal and I did not publish the prophecy on the website.

Three weeks later the deadline was behind us, and no earthquake or volcano had struck. He called me: “That word was right, but I got the date wrong!” and he gave me a new date. Then he added, “But could you pray for me? My whole life is getting shaken, and there’s stuff I thought was way behind me that’s becoming public now!” The revelation had been correct, but the interpretation, and therefore the application, were incorrect.

Frankly, I’m one of those prophetic folks who was always quick to interpret prophecies with words like “judgment” or “the remnant.” He corrected me: in this season, Father asked me, “Son, why do you expect judgment? Everything – every sin – that deserved judgment was paid for in the Cross.”

I have since come to believe that one day, those who rejected his payment for their sin would have the “privilege” of paying for their own sin (Revelation 20:12), but there were no sins – past, present, or future; individual or corporate – that were not covered by the blood of Jesus on the Cross.

This is not to say that I don’t think real trouble is coming to America, and to our region in particular. I actually do believe we’re in for tough times, and I’m asking for more revelation for how to prepare. But from the way I think I’m learning to understand the cross, those troubles are not about judgment, certainly not about judgment from God, and a good number of the prognostications of disaster are errors in interpreting true prophetic revelation. 

More recently, He’s been teaching me more about the power of our declarations as believers. It’s a lot. We’re made in God’s image, and he did his first big project by words: “And God said… and it was so.” That’s my Dad! I'm in his line of work.

Here’s where I’m going: there are a lot of believers who don’t understand the cross very well. (Yeah, I was one for a bunch of decades, durn it.) And a lot of believers have been declaring disaster coming to America, or declaring Mr. Obama’s incompetence, or similar things. Recently, I’ve begun to question whether our declarations of disaster may have a hand in causing disaster to come about, about whether our declaring icky things about Mr. Obama are bringing some of those things to pass, whether we are seeing the fulfillment of our own declarations.

By way of illustration, God himself (Genesis 18:21) seems to declare that the reason that Sodom & Gomorrah were judged was because of the outcry against it. I wonder– if there is judgment coming against our nation, or against “famously sinful” cities in our nation (San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, New Orleans, etc) – whether the judgment is not from God, but from God’s people.

So I’m pretty careful about speaking un-lovely things about people or nations; I’m really, really careful that I’m not interpreting prophetic words according to my own expectations.

Correcting What is NOT Being Said?

It is clear that there is a fair bit of new revelation in the air nowadays; God is revealing new truths, and new application of old truths.  

Anytime that happens, the enemy likes to fill the air with smoke in order to confuse God’s people. Discernment is needed: we must eat the meat & spit out the bones; we must reject revelation that is outside of “Spirit & truth,” remembering “Thy word is truth.” Godly discernment and the Bible are the standards by which we discern truth. 

But I have a growing conviction that much of what is being both corrected and rejected is not actually what is being revealed or declared. I am observing, with disconcerting frequency, a troubling pattern:

I’m seeing correcting what people are not saying, or at least what people mean to not say. 

Here’s what the process looks like; perhaps you’ve seen it happen:

• Someone declares a revelation which is not entirely familiar. 

• That revelation reminds a listener (or a reader) of something else, something uncomfortable or something false. Perhaps they encountered this revelation with an error in the past, or perhaps it’s just similarity. For example, the revelation that we are “saved by faith” often triggers “license to sin” warning lights, even though the person preaching salvation by faith has not promoted a license to sin. 

• As a result, we argue against the something false (in this example, against a license to sin) even though it is not the revelation that was being presented.  

• The result of that argument is multiple:

ü      the original revelation (in this example: that we are saved by faith) is lost in the confusion.

ü      an expression of the Kingdom is perverted in the direction of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, not the Tree of Life

ü      the one who brought the original revelation may become confused, discouraged, or frustrated.

ü      an opportunity to expand the Kingdom is missed.

ü      we as a community are less willing to consider new revelation, concerned that it will confuse/offend some, or for fear that they’ll be persecuted for it.

ü      relationships in the Kingdom experience unnecessary stress.

In other words, there is really nothing good that comes from arguing with what people have not said.

First cousin to “arguing against what someone has not said,” is the idea of “fine tuning what someone has said.” The process is similar:

• Someone declares a revelation which is not entirely familiar. 

• One of the listeners (or readers) immediately notices that it is possible to take this truth too far. So they immediately post their warnings about the truth.

• As a result, people’s attention is taken away from the truth of the revelation (for example, “salvation comes through faith, not works,”) and focused on irrelevant details (“Yes but you MUST pray the sinner’s prayer or it doesn’t count” or some such).

• The result of that foolishness is remarkably similar:

ü      the original revelation (in this example: that we are saved by faith) is lost in the confusion.

ü      an expression of the Kingdom is perverted in the direction of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, not the Tree of Life

ü      the one who brought the original revelation may become confused, discouraged, or frustrated.

ü      an opportunity to expand the Kingdom is missed.

ü      we as a community are less willing to consider new revelation, concerned that it will confuse/offend some, or for fear that they’ll be persecuted for it.

ü      relationships in the Kingdom experience unnecessary stress.

Frankly, these processes are often a real clear example of manipulation and control: they’re an attempt to draw attention to ourselves, instead of the person with the revelation, or the Spirit who gave them that revelation. Or they’re  the result of believing a lie: “The Holy Spirit needs ME to correct people, or else they’ll fall into error!” That’s rather a problem. In a public conversation, there is no good thing that comes from correcting an imaginary error in a friend.

Of course, the recommendation is to listen to what the other guy is saying, and then maybe even listen to what Holy Spirit is saying before shooting our mouths off.

Some disclaimers are appropriate: 

• There is real heresy out there. For example, some people are promoting grace to the point of throwing out some of the authority of scripture. It really is happening, and it needs to be opposed in the places it is happening. It does NOT need to be opposed whenever someone says something similar to what those people are saying: that would be correcting what people are not saying, and that would not be helpful.

• For some of us recovering from the error of Bibliolatry, the place of scripture in our lives is changing. It is no longer the legalistic trump card, cancelling personal relationship with God that it used to be: it really is being demoted from its place as the 4th person of the Trinity, and it should be. (And this in itself is triggering this process!)

Paying Rent on a Fishing Boat

In Luke, chapter five, Jesus borrows Peter’s boat, pushes out from shore, and teaches the crowd.

But after he was through teaching, an interesting thing happened: it’s as if Jesus performs a miracle in order to pay Pete for the use of his boat: 

4 When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” 6 And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. 7 So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink

There are several lessons that could be, and no doubt have been, taught from this passage, about obedience, about team ministry, about trials in God’s blessings. But the one that stuck out to me today was this:

Jesus is not afraid of making his kids wealthy.

For some years, I lived in a fishing community in the Northwest. I was surprised to learn that some of the local commercial fishing boats would consider the night’s fishing profitable if they caught eight or ten salmon. They could sell the fish for enough to pay the costs of running the boat for the night, the wear and tear on their equipment, and still make themselves a paycheck.

But here, Jesus gives them so many fish that it swamps two commercial fishing boats. Admittedly they built fishing boats differently in the first century than in the twenty-first century, but it’s very clear that this one catch was way more than the optimistic boat-builders had planned for.

A catch like that could provide enough money to live off of for several months, maybe longer, while the fishermen spent their time hanging around Jesus and learning from him. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that this one catch was six months’ worth of income for their families: for us, that’s a lot of money, maybe tens of thousands of dollars.

There are a couple of interesting observations about the process which Jesus used to pay rent on Pete’s boat:

• Peter never offered to rent his boat to Jesus. He never offered Jesus use of the boat. Jesus intrudes: he just stepped into the boat of the fisherman who had failed at his work all night, and asked to be pushed out from the shore. Jesus intrudes on Peter’s failure and expects Peter to comply with his request. I don’t think it’s too much to infer that Jesus just might break in on our own lives, even in the “ungodly” place of self-pity, and use us.

• “Being used by God” sometimes looks like it did for Peter: sitting on your sore backside, wishing you were doing something else, while he’s talking to other people about things you don’t really understand.

• Then Jesus told (he didn’t ask) Peter to do something foolish: to waste some more time and energy on something that hasn’t worked, to invest some more in the place of Pete’s failure. Worse: Pete is a professional fisherman, and he knows that this is the wrong time to catch fish (that’s why he’d been out all night: night is better fishing time on that lake), and this preacher-guy is trying to tell him how to do his job.

• Jesus didn’t just write Pete a check or a bag of silver coins for the use of the boat. He badgered Pete into working some more, and then he blessed the work that Pete did. Jesus used the vehicle of Pete’s own hard work (harder than he expected it to be: that was a lot of fish!) to drop twenty thousand bucks (or however much) into Pete’s checking account. While it’s not the only way Jesus does things, it’s a common one (Matthew 17:27)

• It was when Peter put the net down at Jesus’ direction that the freaky harvest came in. It happened again, almost the same way, after Jesus had raised from the dead, in John 21.

• But Jesus wasn’t afraid to drop a large chunk of wealth into the hands of an untrained fisherman. He didn’t give Peter a six-week lesson on How to Handle Money, or remind him about the importance of tithing if you expect God to bless you. He just blessed his socks off; and nearly sank his boat.

• Peter recognized the presence of God in the sudden appearance of slippery, flopping wealth sinking his boat and his partner’s! His response: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” Jesus uses that moment of spiritual openness to give Peter a new job: “From now on you will catch men.”

By way of application, I find myself reflecting on these action points:

1. It’s probably good to let Jesus intrude on my day-to-day trudging. Maybe even invite him in.

2. I probably need to re-evaluate what it means to be “used by God,” so that there’s a whole lot less confusion. Sitting on my butt, if he’s asked me to sit, can be frightfully profitable ministry, though it doesn’t look so impressive on the resume or the Facebook page.

3. I need to guard against resentment: fancy expectations (see #2 above), intrusions on my life (#1 above) and failures.

4. If I’m asking God for money, perhaps I should ask him to bless my job. That seems to be something he does pretty well.

5. And I remind myself: when I experience that transition from discouragement to fruitfulness, don’t be surprised if you get a new assignment from Heaven during that season.

Fishing Lessons

There’s an old saying:

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

That’s actually a good saying. Roughly translated, it means, “It’s better to teach people how to overcome their trials than to simply meet their immediate needs.” The Book talks about “equipping the saints for works of ministry,” being the primary work of church leaders, not ministering to the saints’ needs.

(A smart aleck has pointed out that if you only teach him to fish, he may starve to death before he gets good enough at fishing to feed himself: I applaud the desire to not ignore the short-term need, but let’s not get off-track here.)

May I speak bluntly? This is a problem with the way we do church in the western world. We feed people regularly, and we put comparatively little effort into teaching people to feed themselves; we minister to people by teaching them, comforting them, counseling them, involving them in programs, but seldom requiring that they stand under their own strength, or fight their own battles for themselves. By default, we are teaching them to depend on us for their daily fish, for their daily bread.

There are two errors in this: those who keep handing out fish every time they’re together with other believers, and those who keep accepting and eating those fish, every time they’re together. Both are in error.

This has been pointed out about the Sunday Morning congregations: since these are very often led by pastors and teachers, whose gift it is to pastor and to teach, very much of those gatherings are about being pastored and being taught.

(In deference to the aforementioned smart aleck: there are some circumstances where young or wounded believers cannot take care of their own needs or feed themselves. Let’s acknowledge that they exist, and not get off track: those people are few and far between in a healthy community.)

But this is the 21^st Century! This is the age of Social Media! Indeed. And since the weakness is in people, when people migrate from the Sunday gathering to the online gathering (including blogs, including Facebook), they bring their weakness with them.

It is just as easy on Facebook as it is in the hard pew on Sunday morning, to sit still and let others feed us day after day, week after week, year after year. “Another fish, please!” It's just as easy to always be the one asking for prayer, always be the one who needs the encouragement of the worship or the sermon or the other people's posts to keep me going until next week.

And frankly, it’s just as easy on Facebook as it is in the pulpit on Sunday morning, to keep feeding the folks around us, to keep digesting the Word, to keep listening to the Spirit, and keep spoon-feeding it to the folks nearby. “Here ya go. Put that fishing pole down, and have another fish!”

Now, neither in the Sunday church, nor on social media, is it safe to assume that everyone who consumes is incapable of feeding themselves. And neither in Sunday church, nor in social media, is it safe to assume that everyone who teaches, everyone who encourages, everyone who runs a program, is only handing out fish, rather than teaching the hungry man to fish.

Part of this malfunction is the tendency for human beings to follow other human beings. As we make disciples, it’s imperative that we teach people to follow Jesus, not to follow ourselves. And of course, it’s critical that we follow Jesus, not human leaders, as we grow.

A brief side note: this was God’s plan all the time. Exodus 19:5 was just before the covenant on Sinai, where God proposed this covenant first: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant (stay in relationship with me), then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people.” It’s been his plan from the beginning that we follow his voice, that we honor our covenant relationship with him, NOT that we follow laws and priests, which were only instituted because God’s people rejected this covenant (in Exodus 20:19) and asked for a priesthood.

For me, the real issue is this: how am I doing? How am I doing at feeding myself? How am I doing at being an equipper of saints, rather than a distributor of fish?

I invite you, dear reader, to take a few minutes to do a bit of self evaluation: How are you doing at feeding yourself? How are you doing at making disciples and equipping saints? 

A Legacy From Adam

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.” CS Lewis, Prince Caspian

As a man, as a human being, I am heir to the strengths and many of the peculiarities of those who have gone before me.

I have brown hair and blue eyes: I inherited these genes from my parents.

I sunburn easily. I inherited this characteristic from the Scotsmen and Englishmen who populate my family tree.

I also inherited something from one of my more distant forbears, the first Man, Adam himself. While I am certainly not his only descendent on planet Earth, I am one of his descendents, and one of his heirs. I believe that you and I, Adam’s heirs, have the right to name ourselves inheritors of his calling.

What was Adam’s calling? What was the first responsibility given to Adam?

Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. –Genesis 2:19

Adam’s first responsibility was to give names to every creature that God made. “Whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.”

I had a revelation recently about how important it can be that we – Adam’s heirs – are inheritors of Adam’s calling, Adam’s authority.

One night, a group of prophetic intercessors had gathered together in our home, and were praying about a minor stronghold in our hometown. There was a high bridge downtown, a favorite among the despondent members of our community; it became known as “Suicide Bridge.” For years, it had been known by that name, and used for that purpose.

Recently, several of us had noticed that when we crossed that bridge, thoughts of suicide, temptation to jump, came upon us: we who were healthy, satisfied, happy individuals. These clearly were not our thoughts: they came from outside of us, from something associated with death, and associated with that location.

As we prayed together, we understood that there had been enough suicides, enough wrongful deaths in that place, that the enemy had capitalized on all the death, and assigned a demon to the bridge, to become a stronghold, whose responsibility, it seemed, was to maximize the enemy’s investment in the form of suicides from the bridge.

Most of the intercessors gathered together that night had learned that the “right way” to deal with things like this was to discern the name of the demon, and then to use that name, with the authority of the name of Jesus, to break the creature’s right to live there and to work there.

But we didn’t know the creature’s name.

As we were looking for the name, God spoke up: “You are heir to Adam.” Hunh? What? “You have inherited Adam’s authority to name living creatures.”

And the light went on!

We named the demon, “Bob,” and then we broke “Bob’s” authority and assignment in that place, and kicked him out. The “urge to jump” was gone the next morning, and within a week, the city “just happened” to raise all the railings on the bridge to eight feet high. There have been no more suicides that I know of off of that bridge. More importantly, there is no “urge” to end it all when passing by that place.

Hmm. That was interesting. I suspect we may be onto something.

Another time, we were involved in a wonderful and glorious session of healing and deliverance, in a wonderful, family-based environment. Most of the words of knowledge that directed our ministry came through pre-teenagers that night. Everything was going well, our friend was finding real freedom, until we came upon one demonic stronghold that would not let go.

After we fussed and fumed for a bit, God said it again. “You are heir to Adam.” We named the beastie “Squiggly” (as that was the dominant characteristic: he squirmed and slipped out of our “grasp” as we prayed). We assigned him the name, seriously: we took up the authority we’d inherited from Adam, we stripped it of whatever (unknown) name it had gone by, and we gave it a new name: its name was now Squiggly. Then we commanded it by that name, and the demon submitted quickly and left peacefully.

If you’ve been part of deliverance ministry, if you’ve been involved with a team breaking down demonic strongholds, you may have encountered the obstruction of a demonic beastie whose name you did not know, and therefore you may have had difficulties overcoming the thing.

Based on our revelation, supported by our experience and by the Biblical description of Adam’s calling, I believe that we as heirs of Adam have the right to Adam’s commission: “Whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.” If you can’t find the thing’s name, then give it a name, and use that name to get rid of it.

(I am not arguing for a theology that says our authority in Christ is limited only to those circumstances wherein we know the enemy’s name; I’m merely observing that many intercessors and ministers have encountered obstructions that we have associated with not knowing the demonic spirit’s name. And of course, I am not encouraging rookies to wield this weapon as if it were a talisman; I remind you of the seven sons of Sceva.)

Finally, I observe that there is, in practical terms, a substantial difference between referring to a spirit, and naming a spirit. Talking about “that squiggly demon” is not at all the same thing as naming the thing “Squiggly,” assigning it the name, exercising Adam’s authority. If I am just talking about a spirit, a demon, then I am not exercising the authority I’ve inherited from Adam; I’m merely talking (to it, to God, about it…) as a man. But to name something is to both claim and exercise authority over it, authority that you actually have, authority that you’ve inherited. Step into the authority you’ve inherited from Adam: wield the authority you’ve been given.

I’m interested to hear if others have found this weapon, and what experiences they’ve had when wielding it. Please comment here, or email me at nwp@northwestprophetic.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Whose Will Is It Anyway?

Let’s just settle the matter: God is good. OK? Are we good on that? 

Jesus is the perfect representation of the Father, and he never gave anybody sickness, never broke anybody’s leg, never killed anybody. He got angry, yes, particularly when religious people put obstacles in front of others coming to know God, but he never brought disaster, never encouraged disaster, never taught his kids that disaster is good, never looked the other way when somebody did bad things.

God is good.

Unfortunately (or at least inconveniently), God’s will is not the only force happening in the universe. If God was the only one who got to choose, we’d see an entire universe full of the stuff Jesus did: healing the sick, raising the dead, deliverance from demons, teaching how good God is.

But that’s not what we see. We see wars, famine, busted relationships, child prostitution, kids disrespecting parents, all manner of evil.

Some people have begun with the assumption that God is the only free-willed being in the universe, and, looking at evil in the world, they accuse him of being either powerless or evil. You can’t reach a wise conclusion beginning with a faulty assumption.


The real reason for this mess is love. Real love. Because real love has to be free; it has to be freely chosen.

One of the evils we see in this life is people trying to force other people to love them. Variously expressed as manipulation, self-pity, stalking, control, abuse, and occasionally murder, it illustrates that love cannot be forced. In order to really have real love you really need to have real free will. Without free will, the closest you can get to true love is a sex slave. Not the same thing.

God has set up this universe to allow real love relationships between his creation – you and me – and himself. Which means that God has given us free will. Not “pseudo free will,” the real thing, absolutely free, dangerously free. We can choose to love him, but we can choose anything else we want to. We can choose to hate God, or other people; we can choose to ignore God, or people, or traffic laws. We can choose to speak only in King James English, or to rub blue mud into our belly button.

There are real consequences to our free-will choices. It may be as simple as ending up with a belly button that is now stained blue. Or my choices may result in someone hating me back, beating me up because I didn’t live up to their expectations of me. Or I may end up in jail simply because I decided that red traffic lights meant “Go” this week, and crashed into someone who foolishly thought that my choices were controlled by colored lights. Free choices result in real consequences.

A whole bunch of nasty things in this otherwise lovely planet have come from people – human beings, made in the image of God – making stupid choices. That’s a lot of the reason we have slums and wars and corporate greed and manipulative leaders: people exercising their free will, and nasty consequences resulting.

And without that free will, we could never experience love. We couldn’t be loved, we couldn’t love. So we kinda have to keep the free will thing. Not that we have the power to change it anyway: this is the way God created the universe; I can’t overrule his free will, and he won’t overrule mine.

But that’s not the end of the matter. There is another free will at play in this game.

You and I – the human species – were not the first beings created with free will. Apparently long before we were created, an angel decided to depose God and become God himself instead. When God objected, the rebellious angel started a war with a third of the angelic host, and was about as effective as a gnat would be in its attempts to stop a volcanic eruption: not so much.

So the rebel Lucifer and a bunch of his friends were chucked out of heaven and landed where? Yep, here: this planet. Good ol’ Mother Earth. (Bunny trail: I wonder if that was the “mega asteroid” that destroyed the dinosaurs? Hmmm.)

So now we’re inhabitants of a planet with at least two intelligent species with free wills: humankind and angel-kind. And Lucifer, now going by Satan, has made “steal, kill and destroy” as his choice. So he steals, kills, and destroys. (We could get into how he implements that choice, but that’s another conversation.)

And a good deal of his efforts are still about gathering a following: he persuaded 1/3 of the angels to follow him, and how he’s persuading human beings to follow him.

One significant difference: humanity was given authority that Lucifer was not: “Fill the earth and subdue it.” We were given authority on this planet; the only way the Lucy & Co can get it is to persuade someone with authority to give it to him. He’s already failed at persuading God, so he goes to work to persuade man: and when Adam submitted to the Lucifer rather than to God, he handed his authority over the planet to Lucifer as well.

It’s a long & exciting story, but the conclusion was that Jesus got that authority back in the cross, and rather than keeping it himself (making all of creation slaves without free will), he handed it back to us. “All authority in Heaven & Earth has been given to me. Go therefore….” It’s our planet, and we have authority here, unless we can be persuaded to make the choice to give that authority away.

We still have our free will, of course: we can choose to eat the apple, to turn the stone to bread, or we can choose not to. It bothers me how many of my human brethren have chosen the apple, the bread, over real freedom; it bothers me how often I’ve chosen them. I’m taking my choices back.

That's a whole lot of free will going on! No wonder so much happens that is not like our good God. 

One of these days, the rebel Lucifer will experience the consequences of his free-will choices on this planet. An eyewitness described that event as a “lake of fire.” And anybody who chooses to follow him will have the privilege of following him there, much to the grief of the One who made them for love. But free will is really free, absolutely free, dangerously free.

I must admit, in some ways, I’m really looking forward to the day that the fallen-angel-without-authority is removed from free circulation upon my planet and among my people. I’m sick and tired of his shenanigans: stirring up hate and murder and destruction, and then blaming it on God; planting hopeless or accusing thoughts in people’s minds and then accusing them for the thoughts he planted. I’m tired of smelling his stink on the planet. I look forward to being free from that foul influence.

So in my free time (that portion of my time that I can actually make a free-will choice about; that is: all of my time!), I’m working to minimize his stench: I’m working to persuade people to “Step away from the lie” and learn to live loved. I’m working to confront lies when I see them, and when those who believe them (including myself) will listen to me. I’m working to put limits on the actions of the fool who wants to steal, kill and destroy. I’m working to let my loving Creator be seen, be loved, be followed in my house, in my neighborhood, on my planet. I’m working to enter his rest, and learn how to better be loved my own self. 


I can ’ t change it all. But I can change me, and that will change the people I can touch. I can’t solve the problem, but I don’t do what I can do, I’m letting the problem continue unabated. Not good.

I want my planet back! 


Care to join me?