Ministers of God

1 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. 5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. – Romans 13:1-5

God uses the governing authorities to purge us and refine us, that we would be made holy. These authorities aren’t just human authorities, either. Last post I spoke about demonic principalities… Perhaps some of you thought that maybe you didn’t want the scroll in Jesus’ hand just yet, since the first seal to be opened is the revealing and releasing of the Antichrist. Good! Use that revelation to prepare yourself for those coming days. But let Paul’s words above encourage and comfort you. The Antichrist himself, though he will be given the very throne and power of Satan (Rev. 13:2), will be God’s minister to the saints in those days, as a gift from the Father that will produce a Bride who is made ready before the second coming of Jesus. But do not be deceived – she can not make herself ready apart from enduring tribulation by God’s grace (Acts 14:22).

Before a corporate church can ever sing the new song of Rev. 5:9-10, there will come the birth pangs (Matt. 24:3-14). These pangs are the beginning of God’s promise to shake all that can be shaken, “that the things which cannot be shaken may remain” (Heb. 12:27). This great shaking will not only act as a refiner’s fire to burn off all of our dross (Heb. 12:5-11), but will cause a great falling away from the faith as well (Matt. 24:10,12; 2 Thess. 2:3,9-12). Revival does not come apart from pain. But this pain also acts as a minister of God, just as the governing authorities do, in that the unshakeable will receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken (Heb. 12:28).

This kingdom houses the throne of God, who is the King above all kings, who “removes kings and raises up kings” (Dan. 2:21), who gives ear to our prayers. To agree with sin is to interceed for God to give you over to the darkness of which you are asking for (Rom. 1:18-32). But when we interceed for wickedness, ministering spirits are sent forth to minister to our desires (Heb. 1:14). Not all demonic oppression is from agreeing with darkness though – we are in a spiritual battle which rages on! Again, demons do not get their way apart from man’s wicked heart. But remember Rom. 13:1-5; God puts demons in places of authority unto something – our good, and we have nothing good apart from Christ (Ps. 16:2).

When Israel wanted a king instead of a theocracy under God, they were given a man after the people’s heart, Saul (1 Sam. 8). And just as it took a Saul to produce a David, it will take these ministers of God to produce a ready Bride. Ministers who are wicked men; ministers that are demons; ministers of pain through God’s chastening and wrath. But truly, because we are to be servants of all (Mk. 10:43-45), then our ministers are anything and everything, and anyone and everyone, that we come into contact with in our day-to-day lives. Every moment, whether good, bad, or bland, is orchestrated by God as invitations to intimacy with His Son, the Man Christ Jesus.

James knew what he was talking about when he wrote, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. … Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him” (Jas. 1:2-4,12).

But I promise you, that it is not only pain and oppression that act as invitations to loving Jesus whole-heartedly. When we receive our resurrected bodies, just breathing will be exhilarating! Simple things like eating food or drinking water will fill us with love for Jesus! But beloved, I tell you, we can have this love now – we don’t have to wait! Anything can and should be a minister to you. As with all things, we only need but ask Him for it. Just don’t be offended with the way He decides to give it to you…

In Christ, BMV

The “New Song” of Rev. 5:9-10

Ben, a forerunner of the Forerunner Jesus, to the Bride of Christ: “Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Rev. 1:4-6).

Right now Jesus is interceeding at the right hand of the Father in heaven. There are things on His heart that He’s wanting to see come to pass, and He wants to do it through you and me. He wants us to fellowship with Him, that we wouldn’t just know what’s on His heart, but that we would experience the desires and the emotions of God. These experiences will thrust us into true intercession – intercession that moves angels and demons. They move because we’re finally wanting to see Jesus’ desires come to pass, and not our own.

In Rev. 5, Jesus, the Lamb that was slain, is found worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals. But Him taking the scroll has not yet happened. There is coming a time when the golden bowls filled of the prayers of the saints will be full. And when this incense, our fragrant prayers, reaches the brim, Jesus will be handed the scroll. This scroll has written on it and inside of it the judgments of God which will perfectly and awesomely bring about the coronation of Christ, where He will receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing (Rev. 5:12).

So interceeding in partnership with God’s heart is important, but what’s on His heart is His Son, and who we are in Him. It’s by Jesus’ name that the lost are saved and the saved walk in power. Nothing is more paramount than Jesus. These prayers that must fill those golden bowls are not just any prayers. Instead, John calls the prayers “a new song”. This means a new revelation that God gives to us and that we agree with.

The “new song” that has yet to be sung corporately is this: “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:9-10).

First and foremost is the person of Christ. He is worthy to take complete control in His leadership, in judgment, and to be crowned as King above all kings. This worthiness comes from His being a servant to all, from the giving of His body that we would become married to Him (Rom. 7:4), from the giving of His blood that His Bride would be presented to Him without spot or wrinkle, but rather as holy as He is holy (Eph. 5:22-33). We must corporately come to the conclusion that Christ is worthy of everything. Nothing that man has can be said to have been earned, purchased, or created by man; all is freely given by the Man Jesus!

And secondly the new song that will be sung includes who we are in Jesus. We were reconciled by His body. We have redemption by His blood. Though we were slaves to sin and dominated by death without the cross of Christ, by the cross we are made kings and priests with Him. We have God within us, the promise of our inheritance, our lifeline to the Father and to His Son, called the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity. We who follow Christ are not orphans, but are adopted sons and daughters of the Uncreated One!

And when Satan loses the battle in the second heavens, and is pushed out and cast down to the earth (Rev. 12:7-12), it is then that Jesus is handed the scroll. This victory will not happen apart from our singing this new song and walking in the power of the truth of that new song. Satan, the accuser, has a place before the throne of God right now, and he is put there by the church. When we agree with sin in our lives and grieve the Holy Spirit within us, we are enthroning the accuser, and are giving him a voice. Likewise, when we agree with the lies of the enemy, that we are not who Jesus says we are in Him, or that Jesus is not who He says He is, then we keep Satan enthroned, which keeps him from being silenced by God.

Satan is a principality. He is the king over all the demonic principalities under him, and the way to dethrone a principality over a household, city, region, or nation, is the same way that Satan needs to be dethroned. An individual Christ follower cannot and should not approach any principality to wage war on them. A principality is enthroned by many people, and there is only one way to dethrone them. To do so, the church body in unity must pray to the Father, the King above all kings (including demonic kings), to change the hearts and minds of those who enthroned the demonic principality.

Otherwise, if you were to tell a principality to leave, it’d say, “If I go, they go, because they want me here.” But if those who enthroned it tell it to leave in the name of Jesus, then it will have to go! Well that is what is happenning in Rev. 12 when Satan does not prevail, “nor was a place found for [the dragon and his angels] in heaven any longer” (v.8). When the Bride of Christ (the church) walks in her identity, and partners with God’s heart in intercession, Satan will have to go from before the throne of God.

What does this look like; how does the church individually and corporately walk this out? We’re told that “[the brethren] overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives unto death” (Rev. 12:11). Again the new song is referred to, but there’s an added phrase: that we must be willing to lay down our very lives for the knowledge of who Jesus is and who we are in Him. And we’re promised, that when this happens, revival unlike any other will come. “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down” (Rev. 12:10).

If we want revival, we must come into agreement with who Jesus is and who we are in Him, for this alone dethrones Satan and his demons. This alone opens the heavens and cleanses the spiritual atmosphere for the former and the latter rains to come; for the ushering in of the second coming of Christ. This alone will bring into prophetic fulfillment the crowning of the Man Christ Jesus in Jerusalem, that He would gather together all things in Him to give to His Father (Eph. 1:9-10; 1 Cor. 15:24). This alone will answer the prayers of Jesus’ heart.

In Christ, BMV