Volume 2006/x2
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(Exerpts from the vision given to Rick Joyner ).
Note: Because we are gospel distribution ministry, any exhortation that we know will bless the believer we will bring to our readers because it blesses us. Therefore I bring this excerpt from a vision given to Rick Joyner when he was allowed to foretaste “the judgment seat of Christ”.
(visit to the Judgment Seat of Christ – continued … the exhortation from a known great minister who had passed on….)
(Quote)
As he talked, his words were striking me deeply.
I, too, was guilty of everything that he was relenting of. Many young men and
women who I had brushed off as not being important enough for my time were now
passing through my mind. How desperately I wanted to return now and gather them
together! This grief that I began to feel was even worse than I had felt about
wasting time. I had wasted people! Now many of these were prisoners of the
enemy, wounded and captured during the battle on the mountain. This whole
battle was for people, and yet people were often regarded as the least
important. We will fight for truths more than for the people for whom they are
given. We will fight for ministries while running roughshod over the people in
them.
"And many people think of me as a spiritual leader! I am truly the least
of the saints," I thought to myself.
"I understand how you feel," remarked another man I recognized as one I considered one of the greatest Christian leaders of all time. "Paul the apostle said near the end of his life that he was the least of the saints. Then just before his death he even called himself 'the greatest of sinners.' Had he not learned that in his life on earth he, too, would have been in jeopardy of being one of the least of the saints in heaven. Because he learned it on earth he is now one of those closest to the Lord, and will be one of the highest in rank for all of eternity."
Seeing this man in the company of "The foolish virgins" was the greatest surprise I had yet. "I cannot believe that you, too, are one of the foolish who slept away their lives on earth. Why are you here?"
"I am here because I made one of the most grave
mistakes you can make as one entrusted with the glorious gospel of our Savior.
Just as the apostle Paul progressed from not considering himself inferior to
the greatest apostles, to being the greatest of sinners, I took the opposite
course. I started out knowing that I had been one the greatest of sinners who
had found grace, but ended up thinking that I was one of the greatest apostles.
It was because of my great pride, not insecurity like our friend here, that I
began to attack everyone who did not see everything just the way I did. Those
who followed me I stripped of their own callings, and even their personalities,
pressuring them to all become just like me. No one around me could be
themselves. No one dared to question me because I would crush them into powder;
I thought that by making others smaller I made myself larger. I thought that I
was supposed to be the Holy Spirit to everyone. From the outside my ministry
looked like a smooth running machine where everyone was in unity and there was
perfect order, but it was the order of a concentration camp. I took
the Lord's own children and made them automatons in my own image instead of
His. In the end I was not even serving the Lord, but the idol I had built to
myself. By the end of my life I was actually an enemy of the true gospel, at
least in practice, even if my teachings and writings seemed impeccably biblical."
"If that is true, that you became an enemy of the gospel, how is it that you are still here?" I questioned.
"By the grace of God, I did trust in the cross for my own salvation, even though I actually kept other men from it, leading them to myself rather than to Him. The Lord remains faithful to us even when we are unfaithful. It was also by his grace that the Lord took me from the earth sooner than He would have just so those who were under me could find Him and come to know Him."
I could not have been more stunned to think that this was true of this particular man. History had given us a very different picture of him. Reading what was going on in my heart, he continued:
"God does have a different set of history books than those on the earth. You have had a glimpse of this, but you do not yet know how different they are. Earthly histories will pass away, but the books that are kept here will last forever. If you can rejoice in what heaven is recording about your life, you are blessed indeed. Men see through a glass darkly, so their histories will always be clouded, and sometimes completely wrong. Very few, even very few Christians, have the true gift of discernment. Without this gift it is impossible to accurately discern truth in those of the present or the past. Even with this gift it is difficult. Until you have been here, and been stripped, you will judge others through distorted prejudices, either positive or negative. That is why we were warned not to judge before the time. Until we have been here we just cannot really know what is in the heart of others, whether they are performing good or evil deeds. There have been good motives in even the worst of men, and evil motives in even the best of them. Only here can men be judged by both their deeds and their motives."
"When I return to earth, will I be able to discern history accurately because I have been here?"
"You are here because you prayed for the Lord to judge you severely, to correct you ruthlessly, so that you could serve Him more perfectly. This was one of the most wise requests you ever made. The wise judge themselves lest they be judged. The even wiser ask for the judgments of the Lord, because they realize that they cannot even judge themselves very well. Having come here you will leave with far more wisdom and discernment, but on earth you will always see through a glass darkly to at least some degree. Your experience here will help you to know men better, but only when you are fully here can you know them fully. When you leave here you will be more impressed by how little you know men rather than by how well you know them. This is just as true in relation to the histories of men. I have been allowed to talk with you because I have in a sense discipled you through my writings, and to know the truth about me will help you greatly," the great Reformer concluded.
Then a woman stepped forward who I did not know. Her beauty and grace was breathtaking, but it was not sensual, or seductive in any way. She was the definition of dignity and nobility.
"I was his wife on earth," she began. "Much of what you know of him actually came from me, therefore what I am about to say is not just about him, but about us. You can reform the church without reforming your own soul. You can dictate the course of history, and yet not do the Father's will, or glorify His Son. If you commit yourself to making human history, you may do it, but it is a fleeting accomplishment that will evaporate like a wisp of smoke."
"But your husband's work, or your work, greatly impacted every generation after him for good. It is hard to imagine how dark the world would have been without him," I protested.
"True. But you can gain the whole world and still loose your own soul. Only if you keep your own soul pure can you impact the world for the truly lasting eternal purpose of God. My husband lost his soul to me, and he only gained it at the end of his life because I was taken from the earth so that he could. Much of what he did he did more for me than for the Lord. I pressured him, and even gave him much of the knowledge that he taught. I used him as an extension of my own ego, because as a woman at the time I could not be recognized as a spiritual leader myself. I took over his life so that I could live my life through Him. Soon I had him doing everything just to prove himself to me."
"You must have loved her very much." I said looking at him.
"No. I did not love her at all. Neither did she love me. In fact, after just a few years of marriage we did not even like each other. But we both needed each other, so we found a way to work together. The more successful we became in this way, the more unhappy we became, and the more deception we used to fool those who followed us. We were empty wretches by the end of our lives. The more influence that you gain by you own self-promotion, the more striving you must do to keep your influence, and the more dark and cruel your life will become. Kings feared us, but we feared everyone from the kings to the peasants. We could trust no one because we were living in such deception ourselves we did not even trust each other. We preached love and trust, because we wanted everyone to love and trust us, but we feared and secretly despised everyone ourselves. If you preach the greatest truths but do not live them, you are only the greatest hypocrite."
Their words began to pound me like a hammer. I could see that already my life was heading in the same direction. How much was I doing to promote myself rather than Christ. I began to see how much I did just to prove myself to others, especially those who disliked me, or who I felt in competition with in some way. I began to see how much of my own life was built on the facades of a projected image that belied who I really was. But here I could not hide. This great cloud of witnesses all knew who I was beyond the veil of my projected motives.
I looked again at this couple. They were now so
guileless and so truly noble that it was impossible to question their motives.
They were gladly exposing their most devious sins for my sake, and were
genuinely glad to be able to do it.
"I may have had a wrong concept of you by your history and your writings, but I have even more esteem for you now. I pray that I can carry from this place the integrity and freedom that you have now. I am tired of trying to live up to projected images of myself. How I long for that freedom." I lamented, wanting desperately to remember every detail of this encounter. Then the famous Reformer offered a final exhortation:
"Do not try to teach others to do what
you are not doing yourself. Reformation is not just a doctrine.
True reformation only comes from union with the Savior. When you are yoked with
Christ, carrying the burdens that He gives you, He will be with you and carry
them for you. You can only do His work when you are doing it with Him, not just
for Him. Only the Spirit can beget that which is Spirit. If you are yoked with
Him you will do nothing for the sake of politics or history. Anything that you
do because of political pressures, or opportunities, will only lead you to the
end of your true ministry. The things that are done for the sake of trying to make
history will at best doom your accomplishments to history, and you will fail to
impact eternity. If you do not live what you preach to others you disqualify
yourself from the high calling of God, just as we did. I will tell you what
will keep you on the path of life-love the Savior and seek His glory alone.
Everything that you do to exalt yourself will one day bring you
the most terrible humiliation. Everything that you do out of true love for the
Savior, to glorify His name, will extend the limits of His eternal kingdom, and
ultimately result in a much higher place for yourself. Live for what is
recorded here. Care nothing for what is recorded on earth."
As they walked away I was again being overwhelmed by my own sin. The times that I had used people for my own purposes, or even used the glorious name of Jesus, to further my own ambitions, or to make myself look better, began to cascade down upon me. Here, where I could behold the power and glory of the One I had so used, it became more repulsive than I thought I could stand. I fell on my face in the worst despair I had ever known. After what seemed like an eternity of seeing these people and events pass before me, I felt the woman lifting me to my feet again. I was overcome by her purity, especially as I now felt so evil and corrupt. I had the strongest desire to worship her because she was so pure.
"Turn to the Son," she said emphatically. "Your desire to worship me, or anyone else at this time, is only an attempt to turn the attention away from yourself, and justify yourself by serving what you are not. I am pure now because I turned to Him. You need to see the corruption that is in your own soul, but then you must not dwell on yourself, or seek to justify yourself with dead works, but turn to Him."
This was said in such genuine love and concern that it was impossible to be hurt or offended by it. When she saw that I understood, she continued:
"The purity that you saw in me was what my husband first saw in me when we were young. I was relatively pure in my motives then, but I corrupted his love and my own purity by letting him worship me wrongly. You can never become pure just by worshiping one who is more pure than you, but only by going beyond them to find for yourself the One who has made them pure, and in Whom alone is no sin. The more people praised us, and the more we accepted their praises, the further we departed from the path of life. Then we started living for the praises of men, and to gain power over those who would not praise us. That was our demise, and was the same for many who are here in the lowest place, but were called to be in the highest."
Wanting to simply prolong our conversation, I asked the next thing that came to my mind, "Is it difficult for you and your husband to be here together?"
"Not at all. All of the relationships
that you have on earth are continued here, and they are all purified by the
judgment. The more that you are forgiven the more that you love. Of course, the
Lord forgave us more than anyone, and here we all love Him much more than
anyone else. After we forgave each other we loved each other more. Now our
relationship is continuing in much greater depth and richness because we are
joint heirs of this salvation. As deep as the wounds went, that is now deep the
love was able to go once we were healed. We could have experienced this on
earth, but we did not learn forgiveness in time. If we had learned forgiveness
the competition that entered our relationship, and sidetracked our life, would
not have been able to take root in us. If you truly love, you will easily
forgive. The harder it is for you to forgive, the further you are from true
love.
Forgiveness is essential if you are to stay on the path of life. Without it
many things can knock you off the course chosen for you."
( … to be continued …)
Bro. Julius Adewumi
Gospel Distribution Ministry
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