"ICONOCLASTS" - An Insightful Word

"ICONOCLASTS" - An Insightful Word
-extracts by Robert I Holmes.

"Where, O where is the prophet? Where are the incandescent
ones fresh from the holy place? Where is Moses to plead in fasting
before the holiness of the Lord?... the one with a terrible
earnestness, the one totally otherworldly." - Leonard Ravenhill.

Ravenhill's words are reminiscent of a podcast I was listening to
on my way to Sydney... It was a communication from the Banff
Leadership Centre in Toronto Canada titled "Iconoclasts" outlining
the role of men and women in organisations who shake things up.
They gave this definition of iconoclast: The breaker or destroyer of
images or idols set up for veneration. A person who attacks
cherished beliefs, traditions, institutions and error. You might be
familiar with its synonym: Curmudgeon.

This idea, this concept of shaking the house, shattering the idols,
attacking cherished beliefs is very much the life blood of
Christianity, of early Christians and indeed, draws from their long
heritage as recipients of faith from Israel. Peter, in describing his
fellow believers said they were "sons of the prophets" (Acts 3:25) -
for Peter faith meant being like the prophets of old.

Enter Moses

There are many iconoclasts in church history, some as far back
as Moses in the Old Testament. He, looking forward as far as
Peter was looking back, said he wished "that all God's people
were prophets and that the Lord would pour his spirit upon them!"
(Numbers 11:29). Remember that Scripture defines Moses himself
as a prophet (Deut. 34:10, Luke 24:27), and Moses prophesied of
a time when one "likened unto Moses" would arise - Jesus
himself (Acts 7:37).

So who is this man - this prophet after whom we are sons? Moses
was the man: - who confronted Pharaoh - who split the Red Sea -
whose enemies were swallowed by the sand - who saw God and
lived - of whom God said, "Moses is my friend"!

This is the iconoclast. This is the prophet. This is Jesus all the
way through his ministry. And where is the spirit of Moses in the
church today? Where is the nature and character of Christ
amongst Christian today? There are a number of facets to the
prophetic that should be reflected in our lives including: being a
forerunner; dealing with isolation; holding God's opinion above
men's; going against the flow; dealing with rejection; being a
recoverer and; driving for balance by being out of balance.

1. Forerunning

Prophetic people are forerunners. They come into things first. God
deals with the church before he deals with the world (ref) and he
deals with natural things before spiritual things (ref). Prophetic
people in the church are even further ahead and as a result are
quite out of step with the mainstream. They are often in the
opposite phase. Happy when everyone else is sad, sad when
everyone else is happy.

2. Dealing with isolation

Bring prophetic very often means having an unpopular message,
and results in fierce isolation. You have to have a thick skin to say
the unpopular thing. You might be a solitary figure rebuking a
corrupt king. The one who rats out sin in the camp. The one who
cares about what God cares about. However just because we are
isolated does not mean we isolate ourselves. We seek out the
brethren, we want companions. We resist being a loose canon or
a law unto ourselves.

3. Holding God's opinion above men's

If we face heaven, and we care about heaven's opinion and
perspective on things we will care more about God's opinion that
peoples. We will seek to experience heaven's favour and not curry
the favour of men. We will desire heaven's stamp of approval even
at the expense of men's favouritism.

4. Going against the flow

Have you noticed that God has a very different set of priorities to
us? He values integrity whilst the world pushes for sensuality; he
desires honesty when the world wants duplicity; he aims for
longevity when the world demands expediency. Prophetic people
even find themselves going against the flow in church - and sadly
sometimes even going against the prophetic flow!...

5. Dealing with rejection

Being out of step, being isolated, being a lone voice comes with
rejection too. People do not just take kindly to your obstinate
passion for truth and purpose, they buck against it. The donkey
kicks against the goad, the horse bolts when spurred. So too
people rebuke and rail against those who are prophetic...

However, we do not imbue the spirit of rejection. We do not walk
around with a sour face, expectant of rejection - wishing it upon
ourselves and provoking it from others. Rather we understand it is
part of the call, a necessary companion on the journey. After all
we are followers of Jesus: a man despised and rejected, a man of
sorrows, acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3).

Instead, Jesus came into situations expectant of finding the
Kingdom at work, and his Father at work, with work for him to do
there (John 5:17).

6. Being a recoverer

"The function of the prophet has almost always been that of
recovery." - T Austin Sparks

The prophetic person is not a maintainer, they come in to repair
what is broken. Recovery is required after an accident or injury -
people need rescue and decisive action is needed for triage.
Recovery is needed after a loss or fall - lost things need to be
found, people adrift at sea need to be rescued. Recovery is needed
after a mop up campaign. The troops have gone through and the
land needs to be restored. As a result, when all is well, prophetic
people are quiet.

7. Driving for balance

"Prophets were not made for the status quo, they were made to
bring things back to the middle. This means they stand for the
extreme, to bring the church back to where she should be."
-Brian Medway.

If the church gets imbalanced, or has forgotten a truth the prophet
pushes back to recover it. They take an extreme view of stance, to
bring the church back to centre. Which is why it seems that their
message is unbalanced, because of necessity it is. But this
contains a dilemma for us.

Once an issue has been championed, and accepted the church
must move on, lest she camp in that imbalanced position. Nothing
gets done when things stay the same. Movement is required -
things grow by getting out of balance - but nothing remains if it
stays unstable.

We quickly become false if we camp at and insist on an extreme.

Conclusion

This is the church, as sons of the prophets. This is the Christian
following Jesus the prophet. They are...

-An iconoclast: standing for truth; standing against tradition.
-A forerunner: out of step and out of season.
-Solitary: but not a loner or a loose canon.
-Rejected: but without a spirit of rejection.
-A recoverer: to bring things back to wholeness.
-Unbalanced: extreme but not staying out there.

Is Jesus Enough?

Is Jesus Enough? by Anne Graham Lotz

"… Giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:12-14, NIV).

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year! Our family celebrates it with lots of food, family and football. But woven throughout all that we do is an attitude of abundant gratitude for the blessings God has given us. After our celebratory meal, we give each family member an opportunity to thank God for at least one blessing received since the last Thanksgiving.

What are some of the blessings that you thank God for this year? Your physical health … or His faithfulness to see you through sickness? Your financial health … or His wisdom to help you navigate and avoid financial disaster? Your family and friends who have stayed with you through good times and bad … or His comfort to ease the pain of those who have abandoned you? Your church that has helped you stay focused on Him because they have encouraged you by their love … or His commitment to never leave you or forsake you when the church has betrayed you? As children of God, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ—with the things that truly matter from Heaven's perspective. Jesus is all we need. Jesus is enough.

The Joseph Chronicles

"The JOSEPH COMPANY"
-by David Wilkerson.

Let me show you the Joseph Company—a body of last-day believers
wholly given to the Lord. They commune with God daily and are led
by the Spirit in every detail of their lives. At this moment they are
coming out of great trials to enter a place of revelation, wisdom and
fruitfulness. God is working in them, giving them his truth and
knowledge, and very soon he is going to call upon them as he did
Joseph!

For the most part, the church today is experiencing widespread
spiritual famine: shallow sermons, dead hearers, "lively" worship
that is not backed up by righteous living.

God has always worked far in advance of every spiritual famine in
his church. In every generation he has moved ahead to prepare a
way out for his people!

The seventy-five members of Jacob's clan would have died in the
great worldwide famine (and the promise of Israel would have been
destroyed) had God not been working ahead of it all. In fact, some
twenty years before the famine hit, God was already setting in
motion a plan to save his people from destruction.

God sent Joseph ahead to Egypt! For twenty years God worked on
this man—isolating him, trying him, preparing him for a place of
authority—because Joseph was to become the life-saver of God's
chosen. He kept Joseph from the limelight in order that he might be
ready for a coming day of chaos and death!

Beloved, just as surely as God isolated Joseph, he has a Joseph
Company today that is hidden from all eyes. These are in the
furnace of affliction, prisons of testing, battlegrounds of trials and
temptations. They are dying to this world, wanting nothing of its
fame, honor, money or pleasure. And they are growing hungry to
become more intimate with Christ, to know his heart and his voice.

You may not understand all the mysterious testings, trials and
troubles in your life. But if your heart is fully set on following Christ,
you can rest assured God has purpose in it all: He wants to bring
you into his Joseph Company!

JOSEPH and GOD’S FAVOR

Does our heavenly Father favor certain of his children? Does the
Bible say God is no respecter of persons? When it comes to
salvation and his wonderful promises, God treats all alike but he
also puts his special favor on those who respond wholeheartedly to
his calling and yield their lives to him entirely!

Job said: "Thou hast granted me life and favour" (Job 10:12). David
said: "For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou
compass him as with a shield" (Psalm 5:12).

Our heavenly Father puts a special garment on those who
completely give him their heart: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the
garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of
righteousness" (Isaiah 61:10).

Joseph responded to the Spirit's call, surrendering all, and as a
favor from his father he received a robe that set him apart. But that
favor of his father was costly! It cost Joseph relationships and
brought him rejection, misunderstanding and mockery: "All his
brethren . . . hated him" (Genesis 37:4).

Why did Joseph's brothers turn on him? The key is in verse 11:
"His brethren envied him." When they saw the robe Joseph wore,
they knew it spoke of favor, righteousness. And they hated it,
because it reminded them of the Spirit's call they had rejected!
Joseph was a reproach to their halfhearted lifestyle!

You see, Joseph's brothers sat around indulging in petty gossip
and self-centered talk. Their hearts were occupied with lands,
possessions, the future, but Joseph's was elsewhere. He spoke of
the things of God, of supernatural dealings. God had given him
dreams, which in that day was synonymous with hearing the voice
of God.

Lukewarm believers around you will want to talk about their cars,
houses and jobs, but you'd rather talk about eternal things, about
what God is saying to you. Soon you'll become a reproach to their
halfheartedness. They will envy you because you represent the
call of the Holy Ghost they turned down!

Yes, Joseph was of a different cloth and that difference made him
hated and envied among his brothers. And, beloved, the same will
happen to you if you are sold out to Jesus!

FALSE PROPHECY Causes HUNDREDS KILLED

NOTE: This slaughter is confirmed by reports from International
Christian Concern ('persecution.org') and other sources. Harold
Camping's false prophecy from earlier this year caused hundreds
of Hmong people to be slaughtered. Below is a new report from
Jacob Prasch in the actual region describing how it happened:

FALSE PROPHECY Causes HUNDREDS KILLED
-by Jacob Prasch.

As most of you are aware I am at this moment in North Vietnam
helping the much persecuted Hmong people of the tribal mountain areas.

After listening to a translation of Camping's prediction 7,000 of these
people (known in The West as Montagnards) gathered on a mountain
praising God - their suffering at the hands of the Communist regime
was about to end because Jesus was returning that day in May to
establish a new kingdom.

The police and military police slaughtered many of them at gunpoint
beheading two pastors. Others were arrested. I am told by Hmong
pastors that so many were shot dead that they were buried in mass
graves bulldozed over in an episode that I read about in Britain
but did not understand the magnitude of until I got here. I am now
trying to clean up the mess at the request of local Hmong leaders.
I spoke to a secret convocation of Hmong pastors only yesterday
who came to Hanoi, explaining to them about false prophets and
false teachers.

Due to a combination of poverty, ignorance, and persecution these
poor Christians don't understand much so they believed Camping's
shortwave broadcast which is how most get their teaching in a
certain village area with heavy persecution. Their families don't know
if their missing loved ones are among the many shot dead, among
those arrested and imprisoned, or among those from the 7,000
hiding in the jungle.

I am not the nicest guy in the world let alone the best Christian
and I can't pretend to be. But anyone who had to deal with the
confusion and devastation I am dealing with now due to Harold
Camping would also blow their top. These people already suffering
for their faith in Jesus had it bad enough. They are not like the
undiscerning whackos in The West who should have known
Camping was a crackpot and a proven false prophet & false teacher.
This is a persecuted church who just had no means to know any
different. This is why I get angry at those who deceive the Body of
Christ and why I warn so much about false teachers and false
prophets. It may be an extreme case but these people, some of
them children, were shot dead. Of course we can blame Satan and
the communists but their blood is on the hands of Harold Camping
and his Family radio. Women without husbands, children without
parents, husbands without wives - thank you Family Radio; thank
you Harold Camping.

Frankly, this has been a rough week for me. One of the worst I ever
had. I am up to my eyeballs in muck trying to explain to tribal
pastors how to explain to their people why their families were
massacred needlessly and trying to advise them how to potect
their flocks from such wolves in the future...

The anguish of the Hmong folk took my concentration off of my
own problems... because their problems are so much greater
after what they refer to as 'the mountain massacre' due to Harold
Camping.

Please pray for these people and the work of Moriel Asia branch
here among the Hmong. We are trying to get 5,000 outlawed
Hmong Bibles printed or smuggled in via Laos.

Where does it end? These people are suffering terribly while
Camping is still in business in Oakland, California - as usual telling
more lies... Come Lord Jesus.