From Africa To Israel
July 7, 2010
Are we presuming to accomplish the Great Commission so readily? Are we busying ourselves with sentiment’s ever shifting course? Are we instructing the nations to assimilate into their ordained function as Gentiles? Are we falling short of the glory of our calling because of ignorance or detachment? God is going to change the expression and understanding of Christianity is one generation. It is my urgent conviction that we are hastily approaching our uttermost salvation and greatest hour.
In an earth of pang and travail, God is birthing a globally unified prayer movement unlike anything creation has ever witnessed. The great harvest of souls (or the greatest revival ever) will only come in context to perpetual day and night adoration. It will never come by man’s ability to strategically reach the unreached in the far corners of the world, albeit mercy deeds are a needed ministry. This prayer movement also presents itself as a mission’s movement, where thousands upon thousands of ministers are being drawn into the death of waiting, consecration, and perhaps an eventual sending. How can the name of Jesus become cherished whenever our own name and our own ideologies of problem solving are quickly asserted without first encountering Authority Himself and then hearing His voice? Where can God be found in the works of our flesh? The witness to Jesus’ unrelenting glory necessitates more than a sermon, more than a conversion, and more than a self-sacrificed commissioning. The “great commission” of Jesus’ delegation to disciple the nations should not be reduced in its costly expense, as if it’s systematically possible upon a few courageous or pumped-up souls. We must restore the impossibility to Jesus’ commandment, lest we further grow in tackling agendas in the name of His gospel and His kingdom.
Beloved, the greatest hindrance to the Church’s proclamation in modern missions is humanism for the poor, namely to Africa. Thousands of believers and non-believers alike are pouring millions into a non-apostolic “hope and future,” purchasing in themselves an easy conscience while plundering the grave of the death Christ died for us. This popularized, temporal relief is not the ministry of the gospel because it does not testify with any clarity to the powers of the age to come. All the more, this infectious “end” to modern missions struggles to relieve a situation the Church herself is utterly incapable and unworthy to resolve. The outcome is hence a catastrophic generational perpetuation, gratifying the flesh of both the giver and the receiver of the gift. Do not those who dwell in the earth fight earthly battles? Do not the carnal minded retaliate their opposition with carnality? There is a grave error in our present thinking that is being brought to light today, for fear that we will be overtaken by darkness when the Son of Man lifts Himself up in Judgment. As the great and terrible Day of the Lord steadfastly approaches, God is going to dramatically shift the emphasis of our inward compulsions from Africa to Israel.
The Scriptures have openly declared our divine function before God and men as Gentiles – all of our obtaining salvation yesterday, today, and tomorrow hinges around the prophetic centerpiece of God’s conflict with the nation of Israel. We therefore must soberly respond and engage with the burdensome resolve within Jesus’ heart before jumping at our every whim to “serve” the needy. How long will our expendable offerings keep us from our finest provocation and witness unto the manifold wisdom of God? I prophesy to the Church that the crisis of food shortage will be seen as nothing in contrast to the revelation of the catastrophic rejection of Israel to her Messiah. Yes, in a just a little while, some of us will even desire to be cut off that our Israeli brothers might enter into their inheritance in the promise of the gospel. For such men and women of God will sell their lands and houses and leave their families, being carried on a cross where they do not want to go. These precious saints will sing joyful shouts to the coming, resurrected Messiah, eagerly anticipating His established throne from the land of Israel.
Mark 14:3-9
