Sunday, May 11, 2008

The Feast of Tabernacles!!

We do indeed live in amazing days!! A new friend of mine - Chris - left some extensive comments on my previous post - a transcript of Don Basham explaining why the printed word is so vital to continuing a vision of the Kingdom of God. In the midst of our conversation we mentioned "The Feast of Tabernacles". I have only ever heard this referred to briefly. The one time I heard it mentioned was by Dr Ern Baxter. He mentioned that George Warnock (for a time Ern Baxter's secretary) was interested in it. I then found out that George Warnock had written extensively on "The Feast of Tabernacles".

Was it then a coincidence that as I finished typing up last Sunday's sermon from Hong Kong that Rob Rufus himself then made reference to "The Feast of Tabernacles"? Here's what he said;

"The Feast of Tabernacles was the last feast and the greatest feast. It is the ultimate closing of the age feast. We have seen all the feasts fulfilled but we haven't seen the Feast of Tabernacles fulfilled yet. I am telling you that I believe this outpouring in Florida is a feast not of Pentecost but of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles is the single, great ingathering of the harvest in the time of the rain.

I've got about a 20 hour teaching on the Feast of Tabernacles from many years back but I want to give you in 1 minute (don't check your watches) - put John 7:2. It makes clear that this is the feast of tabernacles and in John 7:14 Jesus came during that feast and on the last day, He stood up and cried out; "If anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink ... this He said about the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive for as yet the Spirit had not yet been given for He was not yet glorified".

Now Jesus HAS been glorified! Remember John 17 - Jesus said; "Father glorify Me with the glory I had before". And He is going back to heaven - died on the Cross, raised and ascended on high and was glorified. He spoke to His disciples for 40 days and 10 days later Pentecost. 50 days after Pentecost Jesus was glorified.

The Spirit fell at Pentecost - but this is speaking of the Feast of Tabernacles, the great ingathering - the ultimate climax and consumation of the ages is about to be summed up in a Feast of Tabernacles. A greater outpouring than the Day of Pentecost! A great ingathering of billions of people into the harvest - into salvation in Jesus Christ in our time.

I feel His Presence upon me. The Feast of Tabernacles - the great ingathering. I am going to read seven things that the Old Covenant teaches that this Feast was about. I will read them and close! I can give you Scriptures for each of these seven things that all talk about the Feast of Tabernacles - the great ingathering, the great outpouring - greater than Pentecost!

1. It was a Feast that manifested unity - not institutional but organic unity. I wrote this down about the Florida Outpouring while I was watching this on streaming on Thursday morning. I felt God speak this to me and I wrote it down;

"About this anointing through the media - what God impressed me with was that this anointing is linking and joining on-fire Christians in a conciousness and awareness of global unity - a sense of desiring and standing for each other's success and for everyone's protection. The Body of Christ loving one another Because of the anointing of the Feast of Tabernacle coming on the earth".

Let's stand with the global day of prayer in the city next week - there is an anointing of organic unity. I don't like minister's fraternals -

I don't like arranged unity and organised unity and we all have to go down to the lowest denominator and agree to disagree. That's not unity! Unity is dynamic and it is powerful! It is the outpouring of God that will bring a Feast of Tabernacle unity and the power of the Spirit and not man organising it!

2. It is a Feast of Joy. It speaks of ecstatic joy in the Feast of Tabernacles! For 1900 years there has been a drought of joy. This Feast will bring ecstatic joy.

3. It is a Feast of Ingathering. A great ingathering of the harvest in the time of the rains.

4. It is a Feast of Rest. There comes a peace and a rest in the Presence of God. How many want to enter rest on a daily basis?

5. It is a Feast of Glory. The Church will pass from the realm of the natural into the realm of the supernatural.

6. It is a Feast of Restoration. The prophets are talking about God restoring all things now! Even a lost penknife - a lost wallet - a lost suitcase - things are falling from the air in front of them! "Lord I want my penknife back" - bam! There it is on the bed! Family are gathering! Natural things are being restored around the earth. But it also means that every gift and every ministry are being restored and even important are going to be positioned correctly in the Body of Christ. Evangelists are not going to try and be teachers and pastors. Everyone will be ordered - restoration of EVERYTHING! That has been lost through the years of the Dark Ages.

7. It is a Feast of His Appearing. In the middle of this Jesus will suddenly appear as He did in John 7. He started teaching - revelation from the Son of God. His manifestation will appear in the glory in the Feast of Tabernacle.

"There is coming a distinction between those who will walk under an open heaven depending on God in sincerity and integrity and genuinely depending on the supernatural and those who are intellectual, self-righteous, legalistic, and religious. The shakings that are coming and the revival that is coming will make a distinction in the Body of Christ".

Could it really be that we are about to see "The Feast of Tabernacles" come to pass in our day?! Whatever God has in store, let the prophets keep their eyes peeled for the horizon. It just may be that we are going to see the glory of God come rushing in like a flood with the sound of many waters!

4 comments:

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

Wow, yes,Dan. That is it entirely.I had no idea Rob was going to come up with that, though I could see he was pretty close. This is what we've been working underground for , praying ,believing,hoping for...nobody would listen...w'd open our mouths,and people would look straight past us as though we were from Mars. This is ultimately why we were chucked out...thousands upon thousands all over the world...because God wanted to get our attention and get preparing. I never set out to be a piano tuner...I never left university to become a tuner. My agenda was always to to serve the call of God, but like George Warnock, there was no way in. Only whereas he is 90+, I am only 50. He is probably very excited in his spirit in these days. What I call the 3rd Level, Rob calls the glory. But the unique thing about this move that is, and is about to be, is that God is sovereignly birthing His Body now in the 3rd Level. This has never happened. Only individuals like Morris Cerullo and others in history. This is the first time the Body is being birthed corporately in this
level.This was prophesied by Juan Carlos Ortiz, when he said everyone in time to come would be birthed in the level of the holy of holies. This is entirely to do with the prophetic fulfilment of the Feast of Tabernacles. But there is great confusion even among those teaching these truths.
If I had to put it graphically using the Holy of Holies it would be like this. Rob and Josh Mills are talking and teaching about The Glory above the Ark of the Covenant. The actual Presence of God coming among us corporately. Zerubbabel at http://www.zpress.org/about/index.asp talk about what is inside the Ark and how Christ's Life works. And the IMA http://www.ima.cc/godsschool.php talk about how the whole of the Feast of Tabernacles works and how The Body of Christ live it out corporately. Zerubbabel hardly talk about baptism in the Spirit which is why they don't feature on anyone's radar...yet the irony is they are God's chosen vessels with the Key To Everything!!!That sounds bold but it is nevertheless true. Put them in the whole picture and you get an explosion to end all explosions.

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

Dan,I had no idea what you would post today.How could I. Well earlier this year I began piecing together 20 year's frustration at how Zerubbabel and IMA have no contact with each other, nor know about each other...when both are carrying the Divine DNA of certain aspects of the 3rd Level...they use different jargon. Last night I sent the two organisations this 7 part email and could have had no idea that Rob would preach what he did. So expect more site traffic Dan. I really think your blog is significant in God's purposes.This is it:Folks,I was going to send this to both of you groups first…Zerubbabel and IMA, but things to do with the Florida Outpouring and Rob Rufus messages this year Invading The Impossible see http://www.citychurchinternational.net/2008.html and this particular blog :
http://ern-baxter.blogspot.com/ have meant that I’ve actually started sharing ahead of time. See the comments section for Saturday 10th May08
Chris Welch Hayling Island, formerly Emsworth UK
This section below was written in the first weeks of this year and expresses my 20 year frustration with both of your groups, not seeing or hearing what the other group was saying.

I
It is nearly time for the message about The Total Truth of Christ in us as us to go global!!!

Nearly 20 years ago I had a kind of impression that went something like this…………

During World War Two there was a group of scientists that were brought to New Mexico. They did not join the army. They did not fight. They were a distinct group.
What they did do, was work with the theoretical physics of Einstein, until they could find out a way in practise of splitting the atom.
They worked in a small place. Hidden away. They were not part of the grandiose plans involving thousands of mobilised men.

They did some atom bomb tests. But then they went public. In what was, to this date,
perhaps the single most shocking, devastating and decisive event of the last Century.
They vaporized Hiroshima. And like backroom scientists beavering away with e=mc², there is a time when the teaching of Christ in us as us comes out of the backroom laboratories and like an explosive force, whose time has come, enters into the public arena.


To my knowledge, although there are, and have always been groups that have pressed into God to experience Christ in Us the hope of glory , on this earth at the moment there is only one group that vocalize this as a foundation for being together. That would be Zerubbabel. See the main Zerubbabel website www.zpress.org/index.asp
Even the Move , which began under the ministry of Sam Fife and now is known under the group title of International Ministerial Association , or IMA, although they would be regarded as ones who are believing for a full mature expression of the Body of Christ, as per Paul’s revelation to the Ephesians, and find themselves , spiritually at least on a pretty identical path, Zerubbabel have a clear and simple message and calling, which will literally be like a 500Watt bulb going off in the Body of Christ.

I put this on a tape to friends in about 1989.

A lot of the people in Zerubbabel at the time were in their 40s 50s and 60s.
There is a reason for this. Generally speaking it takes a convert 10,20,30 years to experience the futility of trying to live his own life, and more specifically his Christian life in his or her own strength.

There are 2 or 3 exceptions to this.
One, the children of Zerubbabel, have this teaching pummelled into them from a young age.
The second exception, in the main, are those Christians who have been blessed to be in that section of the Body of Christ who believe in and have experienced a “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”.
As far as we know, among the fastest group in history to pass through what the Apostle John referred to as the three stages of growth, were the disciples themselves.
in only 3 devastating years. Boy, they were going some!!!
The third exception are those whose outer experiences are so harsh, that they are forced to draw early upon hidden resources…These experiences may be terrible persecution, or extremely bad life experiences such as divorce, physical disablements and conditions, business crisis’s etc....etc.
A fourth exception are some of the Jewish or Messianic Christians who are thoroughly converted and experience the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. For example
Bob and Rose Weiner who saw pretty soon some of the significance of the Jewish Festivals and put out teaching books on these subjects, largely ignored by the British churches in the 80s. Another example would be David and Lisa Loden who were part of the 1970s Christian prophetic dance troupe “Shekinah” that travelled widely, who were then “collared” by the Lord through the ministry of Ed Miller, (the latter involved in the 50s and 60s Argentine revival)and have spent ever since in Netanya in Israel.







II

It is now 100 years since the Holy Spirit broke out among sizeable numbers in different parts of the globe in what came to be seen from scripture as the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the Pentecostal awakening. One of the powerful and influential ministries who affected Norman Grubb and also Watchman Nee and his writings, was Jessie Penn-Lewis. She wrote many works including an account of the Welsh Revival which she lived through.
Norman Grubb referred to her in the book “Once Caught, No Escape.” He wrote:
“Two years later I was at home (back from Africa) and visiting this same Jesse Penn Lewis…she told me what happened when she had been “baptized with the Holy Ghost” as she called it…..as she talked it was like a great light lit within me, bringing the inner awareness which has never left me since , of Christ living in me; and living in such a sense that it was not I really doing the living, but He in me in His Norman form.”


III
Here is a problem then . I’ve been living with this challenge for 20 years.
Let me explain.
Quoting from the same source Norman writes in Once Caught…”So this has become the central fact of our lives (he and his wife Pauline) – which has to become so in every life – call it by what name we like – the Second Blessing, Entire Sanctification, the Baptism of the Spirit, the Fullness of the Spirit, the Second Rest, the Exchanged Life.”

The problem is this. Although these words describe different aspects of us exchanging our former manner of life for the new life in Christ, they actually are NOT quite the same.
Spiritual things are real. We argue and fuss over things down here….but what we have to believe is that as we get caught up more and more in the true experience of the heavenlies, we will see in a more and more defined way.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a defined experience that we thankfully can go on experiencing in deeper and deeper ways. Jesus was the same Person before and after He was baptised in water and received the empowering or baptism of the Spirit…but the manner of His life changed totally from that moment on. He entered into ministry. A supernatural ministry. What Jesus was defined on throughout all His earthly life, was that He was the Second Person of the Trinity in human form. He was unique in this respect. Born directly of God as the Second Man, the Second Adam. But that lifelong definition, initially expressed in his carpentry, only went into ministry action
after his baptism in water and baptism in the Holy Spirit, and His subsequent testing time in the wilderness…which is probably the shortest 2nd level in history!!!!

But Norman is correct in this, as is Page Prewitt, who has brought more clarity still, that is we need to know who we are….who we really are….that is containers…and this is explained in every issue of the Intercessor magazine. We can have received the experience of being baptized in the Spirit , yet still be spending all our non-meeting or non-praying moments in total desperation, because we do not know how life operates.(I say this …because this certainly was my experience in the 70s and 80s.)

And this is my concern. IMA need the clarity of Zerubbabel about how to minister the practics of living Christ. But in a very real way, Zerubbabel have inherited a very woolly theology from Norman about how defined the Experience and outworking of the powerful Holy Spirit is. They need their brethren in the IMA to pass on the very real anointing that is among them.(IMA website at the time of writing is unavailable, but their Conference Centre – which by the way needs more Christians to use the facilities – is at www.bowensmill.org)

I have sat on this for 20 years. And there is a frustration that this has taken this long.
Timing is a mystery. On the one hand we get annoyed with the people of Israel for refusing to listen to Caleb and Joshua, and spending 40 more years going round and round in the wilderness……a distance that was actually only 11 days travel!!! On the other hand when the timing of God had fully come they sure experienced God’s Power at Jericho!


IV
One of God’s ironies…a true Cinderella story this one. One of the IMA ministries recently stated (as relayed on the La Linea website) that it is unlikely that anyone is going to partake of the “Third Feast”, without first experiencing the “Second Feast”.
This sounds ever so cryptic but if you are unfamiliar with this sort of jargon, it nevertheless is real, so bear with it. The second Jewish feast was Pentecost, and when we come to know Jesus we too can have a Pentecost, as God longs to fill us to overflowing with His Holy Spirit. The third feast Is The Feast of Tabernacles, and is the experience of the revelation concerning how the Life of Christ grows and busts out of us, bringing forth all that we were actually made and destined for.

Well, here is the irony….God HAS INDEED TAKEN some people , quite outside of the run of things in recent years….outside of the charismatic churches, the TV ministries, the
global evangelists such as Rheinhardt Bonnke, Morris Cerullo…

Outside of the Latter Rain Ministries, outside of George Warnock’s amazing expositions…outside of IMA, a set of ministries totally given over to travelling anonymously to build up the Body of Christ…
Outside of Ed Miller, a mature ministry, who broke through in intercession to open up Argentina in 1950s, and indirectly to bring the “way of entering the Presence of God in Praise and Worship” via many, many he has taught and influenced .
Outside of all the main streams of charismatic churches in Europe and America….

and actually using Norman Grubb in his last decades, and then a precious sister he taught, called Page Prewitt. WELL HERE IS THE IRONY….neither of them are that defined on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit….which is why, in the ordinary run of things….Zerubbabel has no chance of ministering into the wider Body of Christ which has now pressed on in these matters..
Yet, Zerubbabel actually have the match that lights the whole thing.







V
I myself am not part of Zerubbabel….but would recommend the ministry of Brett Burrowes and Page Prewitt. See their home page. www.zpress.org/index.asp

I am not part of IMA but would recommend their ministries. I gleaned enough from
them, also from Ed Miller, Mother Basilea Schlink (yes I became a nun for a few weeks in the sisterhood of Mary in 1974 – and I’m a bloke) from the three stage
writings of Watchman Nee eg Sit Walk Stand……….

to know there are 3 stages of growth, 3 levels, not the two you hear mostly.

What you hear of mostly is being born again, and being baptised in the Spirit.
Now there have always been trekkers in God, the Madame Guyons, Brother Lawrence’s. Jessie Penn Lewis…John G Lake..Watchman Nee….Witness Lee.. Basilea Schlink…you know, the people on bookshelves in our Christian bookshops…

but simultaneous with this, God has been sowing these lives , to reap corporate movements of greater and greater glory.

Many in the Body of Christ the world over experienced the new stage of baptism in the Spirit around 100 years ago….then God did a new thing and infiltrated the denominational churches with this experience in 1960s onwards…most recently through the Alpha Course as one particular vehicle of learning these revelations.

But what happens to people in this second stage of growth, when they in turn press on further into God….well, no one in the 1st and 2nd levels talk about them much, but they are there…none the less.

What happened to George Jeffries of the Welsh revival after the early decades??…well, Rheinhardt Bonnke found him by Godsident, (a Divine form of accident) at his home in London and he prayed over Rheinhardt…and who knows how much of the reach Rheinhardt has now into Africa and beyond has come from this incident in London hours before George died. (A similar sort of baton passing happened in a Katherine Kuhlman meeting with Benny Hinn in the mid 70s).

Dan Bowen on his blog http://ern-baxter.blogspot.com/ mentions George Warnock.
http://www.georgewarnock.com/
George never openly mentions that he worked alongside Ern Baxter for some months.
He wrote one of the most incredible prophetically charged texts on the Pattern of the Tabernacle available on his website. This has influenced many tabernacle writers since, but also been an influence on whole movements since, like Sam Fife and the Move, now the IMA.
Well, George always intended to go into ministry, but it was like he was 50 years ahead of his time…a bit like Norman Grubb, too…and so George contented himself ever since with his career as a cabinetmaker. He is now in his 90s.
Norman Grubb was influenced by the Intercessor Rees Howells, and wrote a book of the same name…so when describing his own life tends to speak of it as different intercessions. The first dates back to the 1st world war trenches. The 2nd to his founding of the Inter – Varsity movement which became the Christian Unions in universities. The next was the founding of Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade at Bulstrode UK with his father – in –law CT Studd (the former England Cricketer).
The next was the founding of Christian Literature Crusade which continues its work today. He also wrote the book on Rees Howells. But being a Cambridge academic
he was keen to define ever more precisely how the gospel operates in the life of the believer. Typically as a 3rd Level man, again he disappeared off the radar screen of the
the rest of the evangelical and charismatic movements, such that even the projects he founded or co-founded in his earlier years refused his ministry in the later years.
Those honest seekers of God will I am sure later regret their behaviour, and knowing Norman, he will not hold it against them when they meet in heaven. His last intercession which he went to his grave with in 1990s, was that the Message of the Total Truth of Christ Living in us as us would break out among the whole Body of Christ.

VI




I tend to call this the third level, or third stage of growth as in the Letter of John:
Children, Young men, Fathers.
IMA tend to call it third Feast, the Feast of Tabernacles, which also has further incredible prophetic connotations concerning how we function as the Body of Christ.
People such as Mother Theresa would call it the action stage. What people don’t realise is that she spent 40 years in finding her identity in Christ before going into action identifying with the poor and dying in India’s slums.

VII

Somewhere in the outworking of God’s Plans in our 4 dimensions of Time and Space,
is the fact that it is not the 1st thing that succeeds, it is the 2nd.

The First Man Adam blew it. The Second Man Christ, did not blow it.
The Law giver Moses…was not the total answer. But Christ, the Law-fulfiller was the total answer.

The first man-made Tabernacle, and attendant system was a precursor, but the new heavenly Tabernacle is where the True worship occurs.

Being born once, is not sufficient. WE have to be born a second time through the Word of a Living God.(That is: I am not writing “a God” as if there are loads…but the One true God who is still alive, acting and wanting a living relationship with us).

And so it goes on…

But here is a mystery. The very Church itself…this agent of God in the Earth, seems like it had to undergo a huge dying and rebirth. It began well at Pentecost.
Alive, powerful and active….But over centuries its glory seemed to wane and wane,
until at its lowest ebb, it almost destroyed the grace message forever, about the time it was selling “indulgences”, passports out of Purgatory!!! (Purgatory is not in the Bible)

From the time when Martin Luther nailed his 39 theses to the Church door, and in particular began preaching the free grace of God again, we have effectively been corporately re-tracing our steps back into a proper experience of the heavenly Tabernacle.

Dan Bowen said...

Wow Chris ....

Wow! Thanks SO much for sharing the riches of your passions, your thoughts and your excitements. I am still basking in the glow of Rob's presentation of these last days that we are in. Just that phrase;

"The anointing of the Feast of Tabernacles"

Is enough to end shivers down my spine! There is so much here that needs looking into and getting exciting and passionate about!! These passions will drive us out to start to change the world in which we live - without us even intending to!!

I am so excited to read what you share, and I assure you I will not be slacking off to the best of my ability - whatever the Lord shows me - I will type it!

Anonymous said...

Hi. I want to share a powerful dream I had May. It lead me to look into tabernacles.

I was standing on the edge of water as far as I could see. I was sad. As I stood there looking out over the water out of the sky swooped in a larger then life trumpeteer swan. I stood there watching it gracefully come swooping in to land. As it was inches away from the water with its wings out stretched and was landing I hear a loud voice proclaim:
"When the swan lands apon the water GREAT grace shall usher forth from beneath its wings!"

The word Great was said with such intensity that everything shook and trembled around me. I was awakened and sat on the edge of my bed asking what it meant. That dream could be spiritualized all day long, but I wanted to know what God was specifically saying. Three days later I received a work email. In the center of the email the person adds in an odd bit of information. She writes "By the way, did you know that the constellation Cygnus which means the swan will appear in the summer sky. It will circle around the summer sky each night and will eventually it will land or sit apon the star Epsilon in the fall. Epsilon means "The water".

I was amazed. I didn't know anything about constellations. I slept through Astronomy in college. So I started digging. This all happens in the same time frome as the feast of tabernacles, trumpets, day of atonement. I do not know the exact date this year, but I find it so very interesting!!!

I thought you would enjoy.

Thanks!!!!

Stephanie Mysak
Indiana